One of the Best Blogs Ever!

I have read Margaret and Helen religiously since I found them about 2 years ago. These 2 ladies cut through the mud and just lay it on the line.

They are both in their 80's and they cut no slack to anyone. Mostly Helen writes and Margaret adds a little here and there. Margaret is married to a Republican and Helen feels her pain. However they are both very open in their disgust with the way things are going in the way of politics. Also, they have a deep seated loathing of all things Palin, Limbballs and Beck. Here is their latest contribution. Oh, and if you aren't reading them, Well why not?

Margaret, I really do like this President. He is young and smart… and I think he is trying his best under bad circumstances to do the right thing and create change for good. Not easy these days… Sort of like your convincing Howard that seeing a doctor annually at his age is still preventative medicine. You’ve both got a tough sales job ahead of you.

I really do appreciate his trying to reach across the aisle - as they say – and get Republicans to work towards bipartisanship. But honey, that dog just don’t hunt. Trying to reach bipartisanship with this particular Republican Party will probably achieve bipolarism instead of bipartisanship.

Harsh? Well yes maybe I am being a bit harsh. Part of the problem? Well maybe that too. After all bipartisanship requires a little give and take from both sides. So who am I to suggest that the problem is mainly with the Republicans?

See what I mean... she cuts no slack for anyone....lol

But there is more:

To all my Republican readers out there – I have had quite enough of your nonsense.

Your party gave us Sarah Palin and George W. Bush – dumb and dumber. He’s the guy whose mission still isn’t accomplished and she’s the gal who couldn’t handle being governor of one of our least populous states. Even the “professional” wrestler was able to finish the job in Minnesota.

Your party had an issue with President Obama telling school children to stay in school and study hard. I guess a black man can’t be trusted with your children regardless of his credentials. And your party decided the tradition of separating church and state had an expiration date. You love the constitution but you seem to pick through that document the same way you pick through the Bible – with all the effectiveness of eating corn on the cob through a picket fence.

We are actively involved in two wars, but you just can’t understand why the deficit is so big? Regardless of what you have been told, every time a bomb is dropped, an angel does not get her wings. Hint: Defense spending represents almost one quarter of all federal spending.

Today’s Republican Party has an issue with abortion, but then fights against healthcare reform knowing full well that more than 9 million children lack health insurance. A stretch argument to be sure, but then again 18 19 Children and Counting is a big hit.

My party at least recognizes the need for increased access to birth control. Your party is pro-life right up until they cut the cord and then you turn your attention to electing judges who promote shortening the waiting time on death row.

And for Pete’s sake your party has an issue with gay people, but you gladly send your straight children to war while telling gays they cannot serve. This one, more than any other, has me scratching my head. Aren’ t you just delaying their eventual trip to Hell?

You actually have Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck as your spokesmen. Rush Limbaugh? Are you serious? Even the NFL didn’t want Limbaugh. And Beck… Glenn Beck? When people use the expression ”nuttier than a fruitcake” Glenn Beck is the main ingredient.

The Republican Party of yesteryear was respectable. You were all about a small government that carried a big stick. Now you are just despicable. You used to be the Party of Lincoln and now – honest to God – you make Archie Bunker look progressive.

If it wasn’t for Fox News you would be irrelevent. That’s right. You have become a party that owes its entire existence to a cable news channel owned by an Aussie. Your mascot should be a kangaroo instead of an elephant. After all, the last guy you sent to the White House arrived there thanks to a kangaroo court ruling rather than an election. He then spent the next 8 years bringing our nation to its knees. How about sitting down and shutting your damn pie holes long enough to see if the guy in office now can actually clean up your mess. Honestly, you are embarrassing yourself.

Look. My party has problems too. It’s biggest problem might be in attempting to please everyone, the Democratic Party seems to please no one. But diversity of opinions is something I am willing to work through. Bigotry and ignorance is not. I mean it. Really.

And that's all for Helen... But as I said.. she doesn't pull punches. She says what she feels and lays it on the line.

Now, here is Margaret's response:

Helen, dear, one of the many things I love about you is your ability to see the positive in just about every situation. Now it might take you a while to get there and it might involve scalping a Republican or two along the way, but eventually you do and life is a much better place for it. Now, could you please just explain to me why my Howard thinks now is the perfect time to get a good deal on a new Toyota? Honestly, Helen, that man will be the death of me yet

According to the bio portion, Margaret isn't the writer of the two. She calls Helen and then Helen writes it up.

Like I said, if you aren't reading this blog everytime a new post is out... Why not?

Add them to your reading list.. you will be better for it.

Death Panels, Health Care Reform and Craziness

It's really getting crazy in this mess with the Health Care Reform. Last Friday Sarah Palin weighed in on her Facebook page with her talk of "Death Panels" by Pres. Obama and how they would kill her parents and her son Trigg who has Down Syndrome. She now has 6,346 people who "like" her note, as it is called.. now I am not sure what that means.. if it means they agree or what..but that's what it says. There are also 2,205 comments and they are NOT all in agreement.

Some of those commenter's actually say to her she is a liar and that she is just ignorant, some even go so far as to ask where she came up with something like that. Of course there is the usual bad mouthing back and forth..but that happens when you get Palin supporters involved in anything.

However, lets go on from there and look what has since developed. Newt Gingrich was on This Week on ABC Sunday and of course agreed with Palin, which prompted even George Stephanopolous to tell him he was wrong. Joan Walsh does it better than I could ever do it by taking down Gingrich.

It gets sillier: Now we have two potential candidates for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, spewing the worst sort of lie about President Obama's health plan: That it will establish "death panels" to decide who deserves medical care and who deserves euthanasia.

Clearly the GOP has decided this issue is a winner. Older Americans are still more reliable voters than middle-aged and young voters, and Republicans are seeing political value in scaring them with threats of mandatory euthanasia and a Medicare collapse. It was amusing to see Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, no big Medicare proponent, warning hysterically Sunday that the Democrats want "a half-trillion dollars in Medicare cuts." This from the party that's also railing about how the Obama plan will add to the deficit, and is opposing every reasonable effort to curtail dangerously out-of-control healthcare costs, whether public or private.

On ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopolous," Gingrich was given a chance to reject Palin's false and vicious claims about "death panels." Part of me expected Gingrich to take that opportunity; whatever else he is, Gingrich doesn't seem demonstrably stupid, and the "death panel" rhetoric seemed beneath him. It also might have been a good way to distinguish himself from a possible 2012 rival.

Once again I gave too much credit even to a Republican I dislike. Gingrich declined Stephanopolous' generous offer, and instead allied himself with Palin's take on Obama's plan: “You're asking us to decide that the government is to be trusted ... You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are clearly people in American who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards."

There is also video of the matter there, with Howard Dean on the other side of this equation. In the video that Joan has up Howard doesn't get a chance to put Newt down but George does push back on him very hard, yet Newt still gets his Stupid on and tries to lie his way to the Hall of Fame of Liars.

But to get back to Sarah's Death Panels... Mike Madden at Salon makes another very good point. They are already here.

The future of healthcare in America, according to Sarah Palin, might look something like this: A sick 17-year-old girl needs a liver transplant. Doctors find an available organ, and they're ready to operate, but the bureaucracy -- or as Palin would put it, the "death panel" -- steps in and says it won't pay for the surgery. Despite protests from the girl's family and her doctors, the heartless hacks hold their ground for a critical 10 days. Eventually, under massive public pressure, they relent -- but the patient dies before the operation can proceed.

It certainly sounds scary enough to make you want to go show up at a town hall meeting and yell about how misguided President Obama's healthcare reform plans are. Except that's not the future of healthcare -- it's the present. Long before anyone started talking about government "death panels" or warning that Obama would have the government ration care, 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, a leukemia patient from Glendale, Calif., died in December 2007, after her parents battled their insurance company, Cigna, over the surgery. Cigna initially refused to pay for it because the company's analysis showed Sarkisyan was already too sick from her leukemia; the liver transplant wouldn't have saved her life.

That kind of utilitarian rationing, of course, is exactly what Palin and other opponents of the healthcare reform proposals pending before Congress say they want to protect the country from. "Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote, in the same message posted on Facebook where she raised the "death panel" specter. "Health care by definition involves life and death decisions."

I would say that qualifies as a "Death Panel", some faceless, nameless, person deciding if my procedure is going to be covered and if I qualify for everything I am paying for.

It wasn't a matter of life and death, but just recently I had a problem with my insurance coverage.. all due to either a data entry problem or a coding error, I have no idea. I had a routine test, well what they consider a routine test for us older folks...lol had all my pre-authorizations and everything done and had it done and about 3 weeks later got my first bill. Not covered.

Let me back up, since I am disabled, I have Medicare and so I have very good insurance, first of all.. sorry I should have mentioned that.. My fight for reform is for the millions of you who have nothing, and for the meds I have to take which are not covered under the wonderful (snark engaged) Part D, that Bush gave us without paying for it.

So, I called to see why my procedure, which is normally covered, other than a co-pay was not covered, and I was being billed over $2,000. It seemed it was covered, but as I said, it was either someone had given it the wrong name (coded wrong) or it was entered wrong on the computer. After a 15 minute phone call it was fixed, and the bill was resubmitted to the insurance and all was well. That was the easy one.. sometimes they aren't that easy.

Today... Greg Sargent brings out another problem Sarah may have, her OWN "Death Panels" left over from when she was in office in Alaska.

State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life — taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom — are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found…

A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help.

Seems like Sarah better back up.. oh wait she did.. After so many called her a liar, said she was being inflammatory and ginning things up.. she came out Monday and said we needed to not be so hostile in our rhetoric. Yeah, way to cool things down Sarah. Shut that barn door after the horse is out. Makes sense to me.

Just a quick footnote.. but only because I think he is wonderful... Dr. Dean weighed in on Palin and her foolishness too.. at Huffington Post.. Here are his thoughts on her and her Death Panels and the media response.

In fact, these kinds of claims are lies. There is no nice way to say it. This kind of stuff is far beyond the usual politicians' tricks of shading words and imputing meanings that aren't there. To quote a famous American who began the process of ending the McCarthy era in the fifties I address the MSM: "At long last, Have you no sense of decency?"

Well said Dr. Dean.. Well Said.

New Rules from Bill Maher Aug. 7, 2009

Bill Maher gives his New Rules this week and really takes on the dumbing down of America. I have to agree with him. We have dumbed down and it is pitiful. People act and seem to celebrate the fact they know nothing, and act proud of the fact that history means nothing to them.

When I first started this blog that was one of the things I talked about, was what did we know or forget in the years from school. But they don't teach these things in school like they used to. We used to have a full Civics course and had to learn the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the State I lived in. That had to be done in 9th grade. If not, you didn't get to move on.

Listen to the facts he recites and to the statistics, it is scary to think we are this dumb, and I mean dumb about our history and our country and it's leaders. But we have let ourselves and our children become this way. We have to take that responsiblity on ourselves and fix this problem.

Sarah Palin is a Myth

I found this very interesting video at The Immoral Minority, and just had to swipe it. I really hope it goes viral because I think it really explains the essence of Sarah Palin.

I have always said, and will always say she is a manufactured person. This backs up my theory. She is what she needs to be in order to win. Just as George Bush was. George Bush became a "Texan" so he could win the Governorship and then he became President, and used the Crawford ranch as his base.

Sarah uses her "hockey mom" status the same way.. however it is an act. The people from Alaska who know her and will tell the truth say she isn't a hockey mom, she isn't even really a good mom. Her parents do more for the kids, because she is too busy furthering her career. The kids have been just another prop.

But, watch this, made in October 2008 and see these two gentlemen putting truth to the falsehood that is Sarah Palin.

Palin lawyer threatens to serve papers at kindergarten, then balks

Once again, the attorney for Sarah Palin has threatened a private citizen. This guy is getting quite a reputation for this. He and Palin, I guess, make the threats, then realize there really isn't anything they can do about it and back off.

After reporting on several rumors and saying there were sources that wished to remain anonymous, Gryphen at the Immoral Minority received a threat through e-mail and the pages of the Alaska Report.

However, it was the way they did it that made it even worse. You see, little information about Gryphen was ever known as he wished it to be. But, they found out he was a part time teacher of Kindergarten and threatened to serve the papers and basically attack him there.

If you haven't read or heard the rumors that Gryphen wrote about you can check them out by going to his blog here. There was more than just the separation of the former Governor and her husband. That is something I don't think should be talked about. That is private and needs to be left alone.

However some of the other things are valid to be discussed and were never mentioned in any rebuttals by anyone. My problem is with the attorney and Mrs. Palin thinking they can just threaten people and get by with it. That's just not right.

It is typical though of the right wingers anymore.. Fear tactics, just as they are using in the Health Care reforms and just as they used in the run up to the Iraq War. Everything is Fear Tactics.

This is the 4th time they have used threats to try to get someone to back off a story. On Nov. 5th 2008 after returning home from the loss of the election Sarah Palin stopped and made a statement about being tough and getting over hurt feelings. However she has yet to learn how to do just that.

Sarah Palin on "hurt feelings" from Dennis Zaki on Vimeo.

Sarah Palin's Lies...UPDATED!!!!!!!!!

There is a recurring lie going around that Sarah Palin and the state of Alaska is paying out over $2,000,000 for the ethics investigations she was involved in. Oh, and the other lie is that there were 15 of them, actually there were 18.

Greg Sargent @ the Plum Line Blog has a great piece up about it and debunks a huge portion of it with some great reporting. This is something that has never really been done with Palin.

No one bothers to challenge anything she says. They take what she says at face value and go on, just repeating it and no one ever bothers to fact check it. Remember the "bridge to nowhere" that she kept saying she said no to...then we all discovered..well she didn't really do that. So why would anyone now be surprised that she is less than truthful about anything else?

Here is part of what Greg found out:

But David Murrow, a spokesperson for the Governor, said in an interview that much of this money was budgeted to the lawyers in advance and would have gone to them anyway, even if state lawyers hadn’t been defending against these ethics complaints.

In response to our questions, the Governor’s office provided us with a detailed breakdown of the millions Palin has claimed has gone to defending against ethics complaints. It does list roughly $1.9 million in expenditures.

But Murrow, the spokesperson, acknowledged to our reporter, Amanda Erickson, that this total was arrived at by adding up attorney hours spent on fending off complaints — based on the fixed salaries of lawyers in the governor’s office and the Department of Law. The money would have gone to the lawyers no matter what they were doing. The complaints are “just distracting them from other duties,” Murrow said.

In other words, while these lawyers might have been free to do other legal work for the state, the ethics complaints have apparently not had the real world impact Palin has claimed, and didn’t drain money away from cops, teachers, roads and other things.

Similarly, TPM reports that there are only three ethics complaints outstanding against the Palin administration in any case — which, combined with the above, casts serious doubts on one of her chief stated reasons for quitting.

Murrow has not responded to folllow-up questions asking him to explain how this squares with Palin’s claims. We’ll update you if he does.

He also adds an update that shows this has now been picked up by ADN and they then contacted the Governor's Office to question them further. Sharon Leighow, Palin's personal spokes person answered with this bizarre explanation:

Asked about that, Leighow said staffers from multiple state agencies had to set aside their normal duties. State lawyers were also pulled off cases, she said.

“Important legal issues involving the state’s interests were delayed in order to respond to these complaints. That means lost value to the state, which is measurable in dollars,” she said.

Now, I am not sure about you, but that really raises more questions than it answers, if staffers were stopped from doing their regular jobs, just to help with these ethics violations... how was anything getting done in Alaska?

But lets look further into this $2 million meme, and the best place I found for that was in Alaska. There is a lady there who broke it down, turned it inside out and studied it better than anyone else could ever do it.

She has more information than anyone could ever want, with charts, graphs and backup galore.

She starts off by saying the first thing we need to do is examine Palin's speech, and the factual errors in it:

There’s actually a number of errors of fact in this brief passage of Palin’s speech, but this post will be long enough if I focus on the one I’ve emphasized: Palin’s claim that $2,000,000 taxpayer (or rather, oil revenue dollars — this is Alaska, after all) have been spent on responding to ethical complaints against Palin.

Problem? Just two days before, on July 1, the Anchorage Daily News, the Juneau Empire, and the Associated Press all reported on figures released by the Alaska Personnel Board about the actual costs of its investigations into ethical complaints against Palin & members of her administration. The costs were considerably less than what Palin claims: $296,042.58. [Ref #4, 5, 6, 7] Big difference. Here’s what that difference looks like:

She then includes the chart diagramming what the difference between almost 300,000 and 2 million is... lol As I said she turns the entire thing inside out and backwards. This is one thorough lady.

She goes on to remind us of this:

What’s more, nearly two-thirds of that amount was attributable in no small part to an ethics case Palin filed against herself. As explained by Patrick Forey in his Juneau Empire story,

[T]he timing, scope and other factors of the single largest expense appear to fit the case Palin filed against herself that cost $187,797 to investigate. That’s almost two-thirds of the total $296,042 of all Personnel Board investigations in the last two years.

The self-reported complaint was a means to have a legislative investigator’s findings in the “Troopergate” case reexamined by a Personnel Board investigator. She said publicly that her self-reported complaint was without merit. [Ref #6]

As I said this lady is good... you just have to read her post on this to see the entire thing. She also has the spread sheet that Palin later gave to AP trying to back up the $2 Million which is falling apart all over the place and Mel takes it apart too.

The 2 Million Dollar Meme can be found here, and after you read it and discover how dishonest Palin was in her story, then you can go check out the other story about the spread sheet she gave the AP to try to back up her story about the costs incurred in the ethics investigation. However I don't know how she can claim every item and every FOIR was for the ethics complaints against her. It just doesn't always work that way.

She has another spreadsheet addendum story here.

Here is probably the money quote from her post and from the article in ADN by Sean Cockerham who is a pretty good writer and has been doing a good job of holding Palin's feet to the fire lately.

Now, finally, we come to my very most favoritest of all the claims made by Palin’s staff in Cockerham’s article:

Another significant chunk of the $1.9 million that Palin talks about is what her administration says is over $415,000 worth of staff time in the governor’s office.

Perez said that represents an estimated 5,773 hours of staff time doing tasks related to public records requests and ethics complaints, whether it be Palin’s spokeswoman answering questions about complaints, staffers making copies, or time the head of the governor’s Anchorage office, Kris Perry, spends reviewing documents.

“Kris Perry, at least half of her time is spent dealing with ethics complaints and public records requests,” said the governor’s spokeswoman, Leighow. [Ref #3]

Let’s do a little math:

5,773 hours of staff time divided by 40 hours per typical work week = 144.325 weeks
144.325 weeks divided by 52 weeks in a year = 2.775 years of staff time

2.775 years of staff time — without even any holiday or annual leave! — to address these public records requests?

Do you believe that? I sure don’t.

Did you see that... 2.775 years of staff time... That's almost more time than she has been in office...lol and all of this took place since Aug. 29th she says. Not possible.

As I said this is a great break down of the entire Palin story, Mel is good, very good. She has picked it apart, put it back together and really told the story of exactly where it is.

Check it out and see the truth.

UPDATED**************************************************************************

After Countdown tonight when Keith had Margaret Carlson on and she debunked the rest of Palin's story about the legal fund I have to add this video which tells about John Coale who started the SarahPAC said all the legal fees had been paid from there. So she has no outstanding bills, and the $500,000 she keeps throwing around is just bogus.

Watch this and see.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Blistering Piece About Palin and Her Chances for 2010 & 2012

This is a blistering review of Sarah Palin and her chances in getting re-elected next year or elected as President in 2012. Andrew Halcro has long been a critic of Palin's, but this time he really takes her on personally and in a way I have never seen before. It is just known as Andrew Halcro.com

He says he is retiring from his blog and from the radio show he does in Alaska, so maybe he wants to go out with a bang. He will be missed greatly. Here is part of what he has to say:

Polls have consistently showed that while Palin is popular among the Republican base, she has high negatives with everyone else. History shows that the race for President can't be won by appealing solely to the GOP base. Palin will need to attract independents as well as moderate Republicans; the same voters she chased away in 2008.

And unlike running for VP, Palin won't have the luxury of being shielded from the media and only having to prep for one debate.

The primary race will be grueling and the debates will be endless. With the Iowa caucus scheduled for the first week in January 2012, that doesn't leave Palin much time to get schooled. And since returning from the 2008 Presidential campaign trail, Palin has done little to improve herself or her image.

Last month I sat down with a former MSNBC reporter, Matt Berger, who is now writing a book on Palin's Vice Presidential campaign. Over coffee at a local Starbucks, he said that after the November election he sought the counsel of one of the GOP's top strategist.

"What does Sarah Palin have to do to be viable in 2012," he asked.

The consultant listed off three things: Return to Alaska and keep her head down. Show she can lead by bringing people together and scoring some policy wins. Educate herself on the issues to prove the media's portrayal of her was untrue.

Unfortunately for Palin, she has managed to accomplish none of the above.

Since her return in November, Palin has been in self destruct mode. While alternating between public pissing matches and public relation nightmares, Palin has done little more than reinforce skeptics claims that she lacks intelligence and diplomacy.

She picked fights with the media, where after saying she loved the media, wished she had more interaction with them and was completely prepped for the Couric interview to her interview two months later with the conservative version of Michael Moore, John Ziegler, where she chastised the media and said she pleaded with the McCain camp not to make her answer the bell and go a second round with Couric.

She picked fights with lawmakers during this years legislative session where her startling lack of leadership drew heated criticism from members of her own political party. The sordid affair culminated in Palin becoming the first governor in Alaska history to have her Attorney General nominee rejected.

She even picked fights with her own family members. In September when news broke about her pregnant teenage daughter, Palin paraded the father on stage to reinforce her family values to the nation while using the two as roll models for teen pregnancy. Seven months later, Palin was in the press calling the father a liar and saying her daughter made a mistake by hooking up with him.

In return, Palin can look forward to an inevitable tell all book penned by the young Mr. Levi Johnston about his relationship with the Palin's and all of the assorted details in order to monetize his fifteen minutes of fame.

However, regardless of Palin's challenges on the national stage, they pale in comparison to what she faces if she sticks around for another term as Alaska's Governor.

There is much more, and he really goes in depth as to what is wrong and what she faces in her up hill battle to try to get re-elected or try to run for President. It really is something to read and I think you might like it. I have read Andrew's blog since about the time Sarah was announced. He was one of the people who let me know exactly what she was.

He was also there when she debated VP Joe Biden and offered in depth analysis and stated she wasn't ready for prime time. Andrew has taken her on head to head and he was instrumental in exposing the "Troopergate" scandal.

Yes, Andrew was the blogger Walt Monegan went to and Andrew and Walt helped expose Sarah for what she really was and is. This piece is more of the same. It should be read and kept to help us all in a couple of years just in case she does decide to try to run for president.

I, for one, would be ready to leave this country if McCain had gotten elected and Palin was VP now. I think there would be lots of others who might feel the same way. It is a scary thought that this woman would be that close to the White House.

We have to make sure she doesn't get there EVER!

Frank Shaeffer Takes on the Religious Right

Frank Shaeffer was on D L Hughley's show. He tells it like it is. This is one of the most telling things I have heard lately about the so called religious right and the republicans. He pulls NO PUNCHES.

He gives his opinion on Rush, on Bush, on Palin, and on just about everything you can imagine. He even talks about voting for President Obama.

About 6 minutes in he makes what I think is a revelation, in that he wrote to Pres. Obama and told him that he would not get any support from the repukes and that Limbaugh actually does mean it when he says he wants him to fail. So, all the spin they put on his statement that rings so false, is just that, FALSE. It is called an Open Letter to President Obama, worth reading, and is there at Huffington Post.