Well dwelling in my outrage over the conditions at walter reed hospital documented by the Post and 'round the 'sphere I thought it had one thing written all over it:  private contracting.  So a little google search was in order.  I was amazed to discover a few things about the hospital as well as our media.  

Catch 'ya on the flip side

It’s obvious from the last few years that while free trade policies – such as they are now – have increased wealth in this country, there have not been equal distribution of the benefits.  Just today Chrysler laid off 16% of its US workforce.  

Why not just impose a 5% charge on all imported manufactured goods or services.  The services I would assess by a 5% tax on all wages paid to non-citizen workers.  The corporations would no doubt find a way to game with subsidiaries, contractors, and the difficulty of enforcement (the Achilles’ heel of my plan, IMHO) and such that so it will have to be more fleshed out, and I’m not doing that without pay.  But that is the general idea.  The fun part is what to spend it on - oh I've got ideas.  Follow me below the flip, if you dare – bwhahahahahah, erm oops sorry that just sort of slipped out.  ::knocks head:: I’ve got to stop with the evil laugh, this is why I’m posting a diary on V day  . . .

I'm afraid that the GOP has really gone around the bend.  Wednesday is my shadenfreude day when I listen to GOP radio propaganda - trust me it's been really good since the election.  Anyway Sean Hannity had a guest host who was absolutely outraged at (who else?) the New York Times for blaming the e-coli Taco-Bell outbreak on Bush.  So he'd show those loser-defeatist liberals, he was going to eat taco bell tacos (extra green onions) all during the show because otherwise we let the terr - erm I mean bacteria, win!

more insight (and a poll!) on the flip . . .

Make no mistake about it, the voters are angry with the direction of the country.  And nowhere is that more apparent that in Eastern Washington where Sen. Cantwell is running for re-election against Mike McGavick.  That anger is being channeled quite well and will ensure a victory . . . for Mike McGavick.  

Kos and others around Left Blogistan have been pointing out that a number of Dems are running their typical whishy-washy campaign instead of voicing the voters' anger, about Iraq, deficit, and what Digby calls the squeeze on middle income families.  Smart GOP candidates are using this opportunity to run on familiar ground:  anti-government.  The Stranger, the best alt-weekly in the country IMHO, has a great article on how McGavick is running as a Republican who's against the (GOP) status quo.  Read on as it really is a remarkable feat . . .

Greg posts here.  Meanwhile Michael Stickings gets in on the action here.  I've taken to calling this the Glengarry Glen Ross theme.  My thoughts on the flip, as well as some choice Mamet dialogue.

RUSSERT:  "Governor Michael Rounds, the Republican Governor of South Dakota, signed into law the nation's most sweeping state abortion ban. ... The law makes it a felony to perform any abortion except in a case of a pregnant woman's life being in jeopardy." No exceptions for rape, incest, health of the mother. Would you like to see that law, the law of the United States of America?

Could it be?  A meaningful discussion on what the GOP goals are w/r/t abortion?  Alas, it was not to be, instead Sen. Allen took the opportunity to lie to pumpkinhead's face while Timmeh sat there like a grinning idiot.  Let's take a look . . .  

Vilgilance is the watch-word now, not only re: our many enemies abroad, but also with regard to key administration actors who would eviscerate the moral fiber of what this country stands for.

Your merit badge and secret decoder ring are on the way, Greg.

By the way.  The New Yorker.  Go read.  

Now.

And he is exactly right about this.  You'd think that the Dems would learn at least a few things about being a minority party after five years.  Here's how it is supposed to work . . .[more]

The last time the rich had free run we called it the Gilded Age.  There were no constraints on corporations and they were free to rape and pillage the schmucks, to squeeze every last penny and hour of labor all for their own enrichment.  

But all things must come to an end.  The US was fortunate that FDR was in office to channel the frustration into moderate and sensible programs.  Without FDR, I believe that Huey Long would have risen to fill the outrage.

More about Huey and "Share our Wealth" on the flip . . .    

Yeah, yeah I'm sure that any conservative will look at my diary and yell "Look, they want us to lose" But at this point I'm beyond caring about that crapola.  Humor is my defense mechanism, and somedays it's the only thing stopping me from just yelling incoherently at these idiots.  

Let's begin shall we:

(nearly everything in this post is cribbed and condensed from his fine work, he has been on this like white on rice for a while now)

Forget all about that was she undercover or not, did Rove know she was undercover.  There is a much simpler way to pin Rove (assuming that he leaked - yeah, I'm really going out on a limb on with that)

Anyway here it is - I'm surprised more people haven't realized this.

Armando, Susan and MB and many commenters have made many thoughtful and impassioned arguments about the repercussions of the Miller case.  The biggest one is that this will discourage informants from bringing forth information that the public should know.  I'm not buying it

The strange thing is that courts and newspapers serve the same essential function - to uncover the truth.  Any argument for confidentiality must be based on the search for truth.  I have a few questions for Miller's defenders (OK, OK - they're not actually defending Miller, but to make their case that is exactly what they must do) . . .

Here are the questions that I have yet to see answered:

Privileges are exceptions to the law, they are strictly construed because they exclude relevant evidence that would assist the fact finder.  A privilege exists to further an important policy.  Be it open communications between an attorney and a client, so that doctors can furnish proper medical care, to protect the sanctity of marriage and so forth.  Yes, a free press is an important principle.  But cases are not decided on principle, they are decided on the facts before the court.  It is the judges (not doctors, not attorneys, not spouses and not reporters) who ultimately decide whether the privilege should be applied in the case.  

This breathtakingly broad privilege you seem to grant reporters is greater than any privilege found to date.  

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade... if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

But he had Afganistan, why Iraq?

Here's why . . .

They don't seem to recognize how much they are at the mercy of actual citizens.  If things continue in this vein they will soon learn a nasty lesson in demagoguery with the Cancellation of Individual Debt Amendment.

Now, we are a long ways from this point, but like the driver who accelerates when he sees a brick wall in front of him, corporations are doing their best to hasten this tipping point.  

Suppose that one party (or an upstart 3rd party) proposed the following amendment

1.  All individual debt owed to non-individuals is hereby declared null and void.  2.  All transfers of debt from non-individuals to individuals or any public entity after [date of proposal] are voided.  3.  All debts to any public (read: government) entity shall not be affected by this amendment.

I have gone native, yet the country whose folkways and allure have seduced me is not Yemen or Nicaragua, but America--or, for those who still quibble that we are all Americans, red America.

That's right, the idea that people living in NY, Chicago, etc are Americans is merely a quibble to be disregarded.  But it gets worse.

The federal judge will hear the evidence and decide the same way every court before has.  Soon in The Republic of Talk Radio and throughout East Blogistan United States District Judge James D. Whittemore who will be conducting the federal trial will be the poster child for Liberal Activist Judge.  He's going to be bombarded with slime.  They won't even care if they are true or not.  He kicks puppies!  He smeared his feces on my child!  He wears white after Labor Day!

Not that it will affect the case one way or another.  Federal Judges are pretty much untouchable, politically.  All this will end up doing is pissing off all the Federal trial judges.  A group one annoys at one's own risk.  

This train wreck is just getting started, and the Democrats in Congress are wise to steer clear.