Prof. Elizabeth Warren Demonstrating How Common Sense Once Agains Loses To Money

You need no commentary from me. I hate credit card lobbyists. If you don’t have 5 minutes, at least watch the exchange at 3:45 — “I just want a level playing field.”

Ahmadinejad Positions Himself For 2012 Republican Primary

Tehran, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slammed President Barack Obama in a speech to an Iranian judicial council claiming that Obama had interfered in the recent Iranian presidential election.

“Didn’t he say that he was after change?” Ahmadinejad asked Iranian judiciary officials in a speech. “Why did he interfere? Why did he utter remarks irrespective of norms and decorum?”

Many political observers see Ahmadinejad’s stepped up attacks against Obama as jockeying for position in the crowded 2012 Republican primary field.

“While he has not officially announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2012, blaming Obama for anything and everything shows that Ahmadinejad is clearly attempting to identify with the Republican base,” said one GOP insider who would speak only on condition of anonymity (it was Robert Novak, pass it on).

Asked about Ahmadinejad’s chances in the GOP 2012 presidential race, Dick Cheney said, “I think he would not only fit in, but become the frontrunner. He denies the Holocaust, doesn’t believe in equal rights for women, hates gays, hates the press, just has a lot of hate in him. So, I think he’d be a lock for the GOP nomination.”

It’s rumored that Ahmadinejad has already set up an exploratory committee. A New York ad agency is on record stating that it’s been hired to develop a campaign around the slogan, “Hate You Can Believe In.”

None of this has been confirmed though. One reporter who managed to infiltrate Ahamdinejad’s inner political circle was summarily executed.

The Latest BS Argument Against A Public Health Care Option

It will run the current insurance companies out of business.

Really? You mean a government plan, which we’ve all learned, and now know as sacred mantra, can’t be good, somehow will be good enough to run our current plans out of business? Our current plans that are so good they don’t need fixing???

Let me go over this again, so maybe I can understand.

Our current insurance company-run health care system is just fine.

The government can’t be trusted with health care. There will be delays in treatment and a lessening of the quality of treatment.

So. If the government is allowed to provide a public option, it’ll be so good that the current insurance companies won’t be able to compete and they’ll be run out of business.

Sorry. That still sounds like a crock of crapola. Can someone please explain this one to me?

Who Knew The Healthcare Problem Was So Simple?

While experts, politicians, and healthcare providers have been battling it out for decades over how to employ a system of healthcare that leaves no one out, the Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has it all figured out.

Recently, he said:

So if it’s a cost problem, it’s easy: Get the people in a room who have the most and the most direct impact on cost, and do the deal. Do the deal. It’s not that complicated.

If it’s an access question, people don’t have access to health care, then figure out who they are, and give them access! Hello?! Am I missing something here? If my friend Trevor has access to health care, and I don’t, why do I need to overhaul the entire system so I can get access he already has? Why don’t you just focus on me and get me access?

There. It’s simple. Ok, if it’s so simple, how come it hasn’t been passed yet? Is it that the Republican Party’s core constituency doesn’t want it to happen? What else could be the reason?

I don’t necessarily care how we get it done. I just don’t want a system in which anyone is denied needed healthcare because of a lack of money.

So, I look forward to Mr. Steele leading the charge for a system where no patient is left behind.

Supercynic Is Back

On February 1, 2009, I started a blog called The Daily Wit. To the right, you can see the feed of posts from The Daily Wit. On that blog, I write all my fun(ny) stuff. I’ve decided to keep the Supercynic blog for all of my political rants.

So, let’s get cranking and comment as much as you like. My gravatar is the famous Bigfoot picture, so every time you say something, there’s a good chance I’ll respond and you’ll see Bigfoot. What more could a person want out of life?

Give ‘Em Hell, Elizabeth

Time Magazine recently interviewed Elizabeth Warren about her experiences in trying to oversee where the bailout money is going.

The article is here and it makes me like her even more. She makes no apologies for having a bias for middle-class families when it comes to how decisions should be made.

Elizabeth Warren: My New Political Love

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher. He interviewed Elizabeth Warren who is a Harvard professor who has been placed in charge of overseeing the remaining TARP money.

The interview is well worth 9 minutes of your time. For those who have to move on, at least watch from the 7-minute mark where she really starts to hit her stride.

FYI, a year before the mortgage crisis hit its low point, she said this about financial disclosures:

It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street — and the mortgage won’t even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner.

Source

The Daily Wit reserves the right to denounce Prof. Warren should it come out that she denies the Holocaust, hates puppies, or engages in some other belief system or activities that I don’t condone.

A Poem In 8 Lines

At a time in my life during which I can’t develop a theme to constitute an entire blog post, I’ve decided to merely spit out random sentences. How can I justify such incomplete and incoherent writing? By calling it a poem, that’s how.

Fred’s. Because Walmart is too expensive.
A 5-year old dancing like Shakira disturbs me.
She is no longer on the play date list.
Back pain. Hip pain. Damn, I’m old.
A wandering eye allows both shyness
And direct eye contact.
Hot Tamales are terribly named.
There’s nothing remotely Mexican about them.

What This Inauguration Means To Me

Having to earn a living really puts a dent in blogging time. Thus, the 2-day delay in this post.

The inauguration of Barack Obama was historical — not because of Obama per se, not even because a black man is now the president (even though that is historical per se). To me, this inauguration was so special because it brought into reality a hope,  a yearning, a belief that we, as a country, were better and brighter and more compassionate than we have acted for the past eight years.

This is not a Bush bash. Not totally. Bush didn’t rape the civil justice system, the economic system, our political pull overseas, or our standing in the world by himself. He had plenty of ready accomplices. And those accomplices were in power for 8 long years.

Until I saw McCain’s concession speech, I didn’t believe that Obama had won the election. Until I saw the clock strike noon eastern time on January 20, 2009, I was still in disbelief that Obama would be the president.

Again, this isn’t so much about Obama as it is about the culmination of an entire movement that is so much bigger than Obama. As I’ve repeatedly written, Obama wasn’t my first or second choice for president. This isn’t about him the person. It’s about the fact that those of us who felt completely stifled, repressed, and defeated by the Bush Administration and its policies came together and voted that way of governing out.

I’ll repeat. Those of us who felt like the policies of Bush had to end worked together and won. In the most powerful country on earth, with more at stake than any other real estate on the globe, we peacefully won and, hopefully, took back the power from those who gave far too much to corporate interests.

That is incredibly empowering. To a much, much smaller degree, I watched the inauguration and felt like we had been liberated like some colonial protectorate throwing off the chains of its imperial taskmaster. It really was that kind of feeling because an entire philosophy lost power and a totally different philosophy took power.

I hope this all makes sense. I’m trying to explain that, contrary to what far too many Republicans are saying, this isn’t about Obama. Obama is nothing more than the symbol for something much larger. I don’t think Obama is a messiah, a prophet, a god king or any of the other names thrown at him.

It’s about a majority of voters standing together and saying, “Enough. We don’t want to continue those policies. We want to try a new way. And we will overcome the staggering power of inertia and incumbency.” (Yes, I know McCain wasn’t the incumbent; the point being that he was a continuance, in large part, of Bush’s policies.) And we succeeded.

This inauguration was an historic event. Not because of the man taking the oath, but because that man was taking the oath. In other words, we put him there. We succeeded in changing things in this country. Obama is just the way we chose to do it.

There’s plenty of time ahead to praise or rail against Obama as president. For now, I’m just going to go about my day with a big smile knowing that this hugely imperfect democracy of ours worked. That, in and of itself, is a joyous thing.

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More Random Observations

1. Attention makers of hand soap dispensers.  You do not need to manufacture the pump to eject the soap with the same force used to launch the space shuttle. Hand soap does me no good when it’s on my shirt rather than my hands.

2. When your children are toddlers, you are basically the crash barrier at a go-cart track making sure they don’t fall down the stairs, stick a knife in their eyes, or cut off the dog’s tail with scissors. Around 6 years old, you become a pro sports coach where you’re no longer worried about the stairs. Now you’re a manager of personalities trying to herd them down the right path. “No, you don’t want to hit your sister in the head with the Wii remote. You wouldn’t like it if she did that to you, would you?” “I’m not sure where Jesus ‘really’ lives. Yes, I’m sure it’s a fine house, but I can’t explain to you that there’s no address. Ok, 316 Heaven Road, how about that?”

3. The number of idiots walking in crisscross directions at the mall is directly proportional to how big of a rush you’re in.

4. Being told at an early age by a sinister older sibling that there once was a Santa, but then he got shot entering someone’s house has probably affected me more than I originally thought.

5. There are far too many problems that need to be solved for Barack and Michelle Obama to continue sending me emails. Guys, I’m moving forward with my life. Y’all need to do the same. Go govern. I’ll get back to explaining to my kids where Jesus lives.