The Iceman (Part 2)

George Gervin. 6'7", a buck fifty. School is in session.
A nice highlight reel

The Iceman (Part 1)

Remembering Albert Collins, the master of the Telecaster.
If Trouble Was Money

Mainstream Americans Agree

From the Washington Post:

A sizable majority of Americans want the Senate to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, and most call her "about right" ideologically, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Senate hearings on Sotomayor, President Obama's pick to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter, begin in two weeks, and 62 percent of those polled support her elevation to the court. Sotomayor, 55, is currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York.
...
Partisan differences, however, abound. Nearly eight in 10 Democrats and about two-thirds of independents said they want the Senate to confirm Sotomayor, but that drops to 36 percent of Republicans. Overall, most Republicans deem the judge a "more liberal" nominee than they would have liked.

But Obama's nominee also divides Republicans: While conservative Republicans are broadly opposed, most Republicans who describe themselves as moderate or liberal support her. More than seven in 10 conservative Republicans said she is too liberal, which is more than double the proportion of centrist or left-leaning Republicans who say so.

It's a matter of "when", not "if".

Black Joe Lewis

This kid is from Round Rock. He's got a smokin' band and a some good tunes. I'm calling his ACL fest set a must see & I'm calling this my song of the summer. If you come by my house, you're bound to hear it playing. Get the studio version and check out the lyrics. Check out his website, buy his music, see his show.

Hey, These Guys Are Pretty Good!

Best. Healthcare. System. Ever.

From the Washington Post:

Many Americans pay higher premiums for the freedom to go outside an insurer's network of doctors and hospitals. When they do, insurers typically pay a percentage of what they call the "usual and customary" rates for the services. How insurers determine the usual rates had long been opaque to consumers and difficult if not impossible for them to challenge.

As it turns out, insurers typically used numbers from Ingenix, a wholly owned subsidiary of the big insurer UnitedHealth Group. Ingenix had an incentive to produce benchmarks that low-balled usual and customary rates and shifted costs from insurers to their customers, the report said.

Ingenix got its data from the same insurers that bought its benchmark information, the report said. Insurers that contributed information to Ingenix often "scrubbed" their data to remove high charges, and Ingenix further manipulated the numbers, removing valid high charges from its calculations, the report said.

Cuomo found that insurers under-reimbursed New York consumers by up to 28 percent, the report said. A dozen insurers have reached settlements agreeing to change their practices; UnitedHealth agreed to the largest payment, $50 million, to help a nonprofit organization set up a new database to replace Ingenix.

In March testimony to Rockefeller's committee, UnitedHealth chief executive Stephen J. Hemsley said UnitedHealth stands by "the integrity of the Ingenix data."

No wonder these guys are so scared of competing with the government (which is funny, given how the government is so incompetent and all). Who came up with this insurance (protection) racket, the Mafia?

Americans Ahead of Politicians (water is wet, also)

The CBS News/New York Times poll on healthcare shows that 72% of Americans (including 50% of Republicans) support a public healthcare option (pdf of full poll results here). Gee, I wonder why all Republican congress members and some Democrats are opposed to a public option. I tried to contact them, but they were busy counting the $$ from insurance and drug company lobbyists...

Hey, That Guy's Pretty Smart

From The Hill:

In doing so, the president appeared to be steeling and warning Democratic fundraisers that Republicans were sharpening their attack lines for the midterm elections, a subtle prod to "dig deep" lest they lose control of Congress.

Obama noted that many of the actions that he has taken are "not necessarily popular," and he warned that the criticisms of his administration will only get worse as he takes on more issues.

"But that's the nature of things," Obama said. "This is when the criticism gets louder. This is when the pundits get impatient. This is when the cynicism mounts."

The president dismissed those who say he is not changing the way Washington works, laughing at critics who question whether or not change is possible.

"Can't do it. System overload. Circuits breaking down," Obama said, mimicking a robot. "It's so predictable.

"So this is exactly the moment when we need to fight the hardest. This is the moment when we need to band together.

To critics of his healthcare agenda, Obama issued a challenge for alternative ideas but brushed off Republican proposals for tax cuts for the uninsured as more of the same, asking, "What's your plan?"

...And Then There's This

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/15/neo_nazis_army/index.html

The lax regulations have also opened the military's doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists and gang members — with drastic consequences. Some neo-Nazis have been charged with crimes inside the military, and others have been linked to recruitment efforts for the white right. A recent Department of Homeland Security report, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," stated: "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." Many white supremacists join the Army to secure training for, as they see it, a future domestic race war. Others claim to be shooting Iraqis not to pursue the military's strategic goals but because killing "hajjis" is their duty as white militants.

Soldiers' associations with extremist groups, and their racist actions, contravene a host of military statutes instituted in the past three decades. But during the "war on terror," U.S. armed forces have turned a blind eye on their own regulations. A 2005 Department of Defense report states, "Effectively, the military has a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy pertaining to extremism. If individuals can perform satisfactorily, without making their extremist opinions overt … they are likely to be able to complete their contracts."

The Best Health Care System in the World

From Roll Call:

House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn’t know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who heads a GOP health task force, said that when the details are drafted in the coming weeks, they would present a plan that “costs far less than the Democrats’ [plan] and provides better results for the American people.”

But Republicans who stayed at the press conference to answer questions — the leaders made statements but didn’t stay — could not answer whether their plan would include a tax increase to pay for such costly items as refundable tax credits for low- and middle-income workers to help pay for insurance.

Other reforms proposed by the GOP were largely minor tweaks to a system that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said is already the “best health care system in the world.”

“We want to work within the existing market structure,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

In other news:

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.

"The Movement"

A great article. Take the time to click on the link and read the full post.

The Movement may speak in normal political talking points from ‘Republican’ institutions. Yet is is not committed to Dahl-esque pluralistic politics. It has has never sought compromise or ‘moderation’. That’s because for the Movement, politics is existential warfare. Compromise is defeat.

Because Krugman et al. fail to grasp the fundamental difference between the Movement, the former Republican Party and the Democratic Party, talking heads refer to the Movement as the ‘Republican base’. As if somehow the Movement and its Manichean zero-sum nihilism is the same as the Democratic base. Say the the Sierra Club or unions. How one can be a professional political analyst and assume a base is a base is a base. Well, we live in truly decadent (technically defined) times.
...
As a sign of their increased power, the Movement’s rage, paranoia, and conspiracy fever in 1993 seemed novel. By 1994 and certainly 2000. the Movement had completed its subversion of the Republican Party.

Wonder why after Obama the ferocity is turned up to 11? The answer is intrinsic to the Movement as functional social, cultural and political creature. It governed for 6 years and hung on for 2 more. Its Counter-Enlightenment, racial, authoritarian /hierarchical impulse was the official American government. With Obama’s victory its rejection is not only personal but for the first time, in 2006 and 2008, it as dominant political force (not as a minor coalition partner within the Republican Party) was rejected.

Right Wing Terrorists and the Talking Heads Who Egg Them On

(If you don't want to plow through this whole post, just read this from the U.K. paper The Guardian. It's a great analysis of these developments.)

Funny how "law and order" right wingers abandon regard for the law or even the U.S.A itself when they lose an election.

Let's review:
There's James G. Cummings

BELFAST, Maine — James G. Cummings, who police say was shot to death by his wife two months ago, allegedly had a cache of radioactive materials in his home suitable for building a “dirty bomb.”

Dirty Bomb? That's huge news! A terrorist in our midst! Do you remember when this was all over the news? No? That's because it wasn't.

Wonder what James' problem was...

The FBI report also stated there was evidence linking James Cummings to white supremacist groups. This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memora...She also said that Cummings was “very upset” when Barack Obama was elected president.

Then there's Richard Andrew Poplawski:

No longer obscure, the 22-year-old is charged in the worst police shooting in the modern history of Pittsburgh. No one is calling his actions anything but pointless.

"He was really into politics and really into the First and Second amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples' right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill," said Edward Perkovic, who described himself as Mr. Poplawski's lifelong best friend.

Mr. Poplawski's view of guns and personal freedom took a turn toward the fringes of American politics. With Mr. Perkovic, he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country.

"We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty," said Mr. Perkovic, who lives in Lawrenceville. "One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public."

Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s.

Yeah? What else?

With Obama's election, Poplawski became convinced that there would be "federal gun bans on the way" and that the people would be rendered defenseless in the face of a police state in which the military would be used against American citizens....Once more, wild speculations about SHTF ("s--t hits the fan") and TEOTWAKI ("the end of the world as we know it") scenarios became rampant.

Poplawski bought into the SHTF/TEOTWAKI conspiracy theories hook, line and sinker, even posting a link to Stormfront of a YouTube video featuring talk show host Glenn Beck talking about FEMA camps with Congressman Ron Paul. When the city of Pittsburgh got a Homeland Security grant to add surveillance cameras to protect downtown bridges, Poplawski told Stormfronters that it was "ramping up the police state." He said, too, that he gave warnings to grocery store customers he encountered (but only if they were white) to stock up on canned goods and other long-lasting foods.

Then there's Scott Roeder - a man who killed a doctor in his church on a Sunday.

The man charged with murdering a high-profile abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell Sunday that similar violence was planned around the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal, a threat that comes days after a federal investigation launched into his possible accomplices.

Possible accomplices?

Now the news is coming out: murder suspect Scott Roeder’s contacts with Operation Rescue adviser Cheryl Sullenger (convicted of conspiracy to bomb an abortion clinic in 1988) were much more frequent than she first acknowledged. Apparently, Roeder was in touch with her as recently as the beginning of this year, when Sullenger was helping him to track Dr. Tiller’s court appearances.

Most recently, the Holocaust Museum killer:

Giving some insight into what might have driven Von Brunn to allegedly take action at the museum, acquaintance and white supremacist John de Nugent cited, as one factor, the election of President Barack Obama as a "tremendous signal of alarm" for Von Brunn. Rage among white supremacists has escalated considerably, as they view the election of a black man as a sign that white people are losing power.

So, we have a bunch of violent people who believe that Obama will take away their property and power. They also appear to think that the political or legal actions will not solve their urgent need to "stop" those with whom they disagree. And for every one who acts, how many are plotting to act?

Cowart told the FBI that Schlesselman had also talked about targeting a predominantly black school and killing "as many as he could". But it was what Cowart said next that made the feds sit up. The two men planned to culminate the killing spree with a last dramatic act: they would dress up in white tuxedos and top hats, then drive at high speed, with guns blazing, towards an individual then very much in the news. "The final thing we had discussed," he said, "was trying to assassinate Obama. We did not plan on living past that day."

Threatening to act?

Federal prosecutors have charged a man with making threats against President Barack Obama after he allegedly told a bank employee in Utah he was on a mission to kill the president.

You have all these weak minded individuals who believe that Obama is going to take their guns, their money and their power. Who could be (profiting from) giving them that idea?



Hell, the results are even scaring an anchor at Fox...

Meanwhile, you can get the image at the top of this post on a t-shirt at Cafe Press.

Unbelievable.

Barack Rocks Green Bay

You can have your Reagan & your Bush (hell, even Clinton), no president since I've been alive has this kind of touch with people. There's so much to appreciate in this clip, from "Kennedy? That's a cool name" to listening to the question and responding while writing the note. The guy is by no means perfect, but he's the best I've seen.

The haters can't lay a glove on him and it's literally driving them crazy (more on that later).

SEC to Start Doing Its Job!

From Marketwatch:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- It was created in 1934, but just this month the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to form an Investor Advisory Committee charged with protecting investors and to give people a voice in oversight.

Um, excuse me, but wasn't this supposed to be the SEC's mission all along?

The whole reason the U.S. created the agency in the first place was to regulate the stock market and stem abuse following the Great Crash of 1929. Look at how it has strayed, representing largely the interests of Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.

Indeed, during the Bush administration, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox routinely was criticized for passing rules and regulations that weakened investors' rights. For years the commission was warned of Bernie Madoff's scam but chose not to fully investigate.

Commenting on the committee's formation, SocialFunds.com said it's a "marked departure from many of its activities under the previous administration." The agency admitted it fell down on the Madoff case and others. Lapses of enforcement have been chronic and well publicized.

Weekend Coming - Music Time!

Weekend is almost here. I hope to get some blogging in. Let's get started with Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street, 1978.

P.S. - Check out the kids rocking out!