It's "Duck Amok" Time In Philly

By the way, given this ongoing story, perhaps the good folks at the Parks and Recreation Service should have listened to Walt Sherman (he hasn't posted to this site for awhile, though...maybe he wasn't so "crazy" after all).

At this moment, two people are still missing from the boating accident - our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families and we hope they turn up safe (and then, afterwards, these ridiculous "duck tours" will be cancelled once and for all).

Wednesday Stuff

(This may be it for today's blogging, by the way.)

"Worst Persons" on "Countdown" last Friday (Repug U.S. House Rep Louie Gohmert of Texas, of course, warns us about "terror babies!" without, apparently, finding out any information on their grandparents - your first clue; Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer alleges that Mexican drug gangs are beheading U.S. citizens and burying the bodies in the desert - I'll admit that Mexican drug gangs are pretty messed up, but it would be nice if Brewer had some actual proof before she made a charge like that; but the winners here are those 26 percent polled in the US who didn't know which country we fought our Revolutionary War against...color me shocked - I always thought it was the Republic of Togo :-)...



...and I know I've been in a bit of a "boomer" song mode lately, but I think this is the perfect day for this one (could probably clean up the sound a bit, though).

Tuesday Stuff

I don't know about you, but I've seen a lot of references lately to the "Democrat" Party, including some from people who should know better; Hendrik Hertzberg tells us what's wrong with that here, and I think this is a fitting comeback from Dem U.S. House Rep Anthony Weiner of New York (most of what Weiner talks about here is the climate crisis, which makes this post all the more meaningful)...



...and it's actually Wednesday morning in these parts, so I can now officially say it; Happy Birthday, Ringo! (no vid for this one).

Tuesday Mashup Part Two (7/6/10)

(Part One is here.)

I have a leftover item from the holiday weekend here from the New York Times. The paper ran a few articles about how the Fourth would be observed at some historical landmarks (including the Liberty Bell), and one place they reported on was Tampico, Ill, one of the two locations in that state claiming to be the Reagan birthplace…

Visitors climbed a steep staircase here the other day and crowded into a second-floor apartment-turned-museum. This was the simple bedroom where Ronald Reagan’s mother gave birth to him.

Here was the neighbors’ window he was handed through when the Reagans needed a baby sitter. Out another window, across Main Street in this western Illinois village of 800, was the store where the future president’s father sold shoes.

For all but the most studious Reagan followers, though, there comes a moment of confusion. Was he truly from here or was he from Dixon (a city 30 minutes away and almost 20 times as big)?

…

“People go to Dixon first” (where Reagan spent his “formative years” hating Democrats I’m sure, a party to which he was once a member – ed.) acknowledged Joan Johnson, volunteer coordinator of the Tampico museum. “It’s not as far off the beaten path.” When Ms. Johnson gets caught up in the Tampico-Dixon question, she said others calm her with a reminder: “This is Bethlehem. That is Nazareth.”

Geez, when I refer to him as “The Sainted Ronnie R,” I’m only kidding, but it seems these people are serious (by the way, you may have to click on the "Gipper" icon in the upper right corner of the page to read the story).

Also, Florida Senator George LeMieux (holding the seat until the election is decided in the fall, and once more, to help out a worthy Dem, click here) recently complained here that “there are only 20 skimmers” off the coast of his state to try and dispense of the oil approaching from the BP disaster.

Funny, but according to this story, Florida had 112 skimmers at work. That’s quite a difference, I would point out.

Just sayin’…

Finally, this “Hill” post from Eliseo Medina of the SEIU tells us the following (and yet again, you can tell how correct she is by the level of vitriol in the comments, including one person calling him (?) a "gangster," I believe)…

Those of us frustrated by perpetual inaction on immigration reform were reminded yesterday that President Obama was elected president, not king. Despite his every effort to deliver a federal fix to our broken immigration system, the president cannot act alone.

The smart, workable reform plan laid out by the president would target the bad actors that profit off of our broken immigration system, restore the rule of law, and move us forward together. But despite months of outreach by the president and Democrat lawmakers, where on earth are the Republicans?

Where indeed, particularly since Huckleberry Graham decided to pick up his toys and go home; as noted here by Politico…

(Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid suggested he would push an immigration bill ahead of comprehensive energy legislation, a schedule Reid has now agreed to reverse. But Graham has said he will not back a bill this year — a move designed in part to help protect Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is facing a tough Republican primary.

The policy behind Graham’s move is ridiculous, but the politics have a certain lunatic logic to them, with Graham trying position himself ever rightward with McCain in AZ, particularly since the Obama DOJ has made good on its promise to challenge that state’s “illegal to be brown” law here.

One irony about this, though, is that Obama has actually gone to the right of the GOP on immigration reform, as noted here…

The Obama Administration has exceeded Bush Administration efforts on border control. Last year saw the highest number of people ever deported: 387,790, up from 116,782 in 2001 and 349,041 in 2008. Thus far this year, some 185,887 people have been deported, a record pace that, if maintained, will nearly double the number of deportations in 2010 to 604,133. The Administration has also doubled the number of agents assigned to the Border Enforcement Security Task Force and tripled intelligence analysts along the Southwest border.

In fact…some immigrant-rights groups, already peeved at the lack of action on comprehensive reform, are calling for a boycott in the 2010 elections. It is a powerful threat. Latino voters are credited with helping Obama flip red states in the 2008 elections, including Florida, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. And Democratic candidates in close races in those states and in California, Texas and Arizona are hoping for similar high levels of Hispanic turnout as Dems look at potentially losing more than 30 House seats.

The Time article by Jay Newton-Small also tells us what has happened to the 23 Repug senators, including “Straight Talk” McCain, who supported reform in ’06 (hence his rightward shift due to his primary challenge from J.D. Hayworth alluded to above).

The real story about the Repugs and immigration, though, is surmised by Kevin Drum here, who tells us that, “The Republican leadership caved in to rabid fearmongering, Hispanics defected en masse to the Democratic Party, and the entire topic has been radioactive ever since. If you want to know what's happened to the Republican Party over the last decade or so, this is it in a nutshell.”

And make no mistake, on this issue perhaps above all others, the Repugs take their marching orders from this guy (and I dare a single one of them to go on his show and tell them that that isn’t the God’s-honest truth).

Monday Stuff

I'm planning to crank everything up again tomorrow, but in the meantime, I thought that this was a cautionary reminder that, as tough as we have it, there are others who face bigger challenges than we do...

...and it's going to be a hot one in these parts for a little while - just be safe and check up on anyone you know who may be infirm, a shut-in, elderly, etc.

Saturday Stuff

Maybe Anderson Cooper is the only one left at CNN doing anything approximating serious journalism - Dave Weigel said last night on "Countdown" that Bobby ("Don't Call Me Piyush") Jindal's approval numbers despite the BP mess are still not bad, which to me is shocking but I guess it shouldn't be surprising, so possibly Number 44 is panicking in response for some reason...if so, this is exactly the wrong reaction...



...and here's some indie fun for the holiday weekend.

Friday Stuff

Yeah, well Dave, at least "Lars" didn't have an issue with keeping on his "Worldwide Pants" in the presence of his interns (ba-dump! - by the way, just refresh the page if you don't want to watch any more vids)...



...and I tried to find something a little mellow in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, so here goes; I never happen to hear this song on the radio as much as I used to - hope it's a nice break for everyone.

Friday Mashup (7/2/10)

Note: I’m currently experiencing technical difficulties with the weekly congressional votes write-up – I’ll resolve them as soon as I can.

Update: Actually, the only item of note that took place in last week’s votes had to do with the DISCLOSE Act, which of course the Repugs opposed even with the NRA “carve out”; a Repug-sponsored measure “require(ing) quick judicial review” was also defeated (a likely “poison pill” that would have gotten the entire legislation defeated in a court challenge), and both Joe Pitts and Tim Holden, for some unbelievable reason, opposed a measure to reveal the extent to which out-of-state interests seek to sway local and statewide races (all of this and more is noted here, including all of our local Dem senators supporting an extension of jobless benefits that didn't make it to the magical number of 60 votes to prevent the inevitable Repug filibuster).

I guess I slipped on the metaphorical banana peel, as it were, by commenting on the media yesterday here and not checking with “Z on TV” first, who manages to navel-gaze ad nauseum here for an interminable length over Larry King’s departure (even introducing the laughable idea of having Kate Gosselin host a CNN show at 10:00 PM).

Also, the “Z” post is worth noting to read Zurawik’s attempt at justifying his equating of Glenn Beck with Keith Olbermann with “Matt” in the comments thread (with Zurawik noting a single instance where K.O. apologized for his comments against Scott Brown – comments based on thoroughly documented campaign ads by Brown, by the way – and implying to “Matt” that that somehow equates with all of Beck’s hysteria).

I also linked to this a couple of days ago, but to me, it bears repeating…

George W. Bush was no FDR, but Barack Obama could be.

That's the verdict of 238 of the nation's leading presidential scholars, who - for a fifth time - rated Franklin Delano Roosevelt the best president ever in the latest Siena College Research Institute poll.

In office for barely two years, Obama entered the survey in the 15th position - two spots behind Bill Clinton and three spots ahead of Ronald Reagan.

And with this in mind, I’d actually like to take a minute or two and compare Number 44 on economics with the late Number 40 of Bel Air, CA.

As noted here…

…Reagan did not inherit the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Nor did he inherit two wars, nor the collapse of the automobile industry, nor 8 years of budget profligacy, nor the radical right wing championing (and avoiding service in) another war or two or three. The retirement of the baby-boomers was 25 years in the future, not already ongoing and accelerating.

And, of course, you don't need little Johnny Boehner to tell you that tax rates, even for the wealthiest Americans, are now already 14% lower than Reagan's 1981 tax cut, nor that 95% of Americans received a tax cut in the Obama stimulus, nor that tax rates will still be 10.5% lower for the wealthiest when Obama allows the George W tax cuts to expire, nor that those cuts were intended to expire for the simple reason that they were projected then to cause to big a hole in the deficit.

But this, of course, begs the question as to what the Reagan tax cuts, such as they were, actually did achieve. At the same point in Reagan's Presidency as we are now at in Obama's, what was unemployment, and how long before it began to decline?

…Reagan inherited an unemployment rate of 7.6%, no wars, no major financial crisis, a still robust auto industry, a right wing clamoring for increased defense spending (that helps domestic employment), no retiring baby boomers actually taking down social security funds.

To answer the pop quiz: the unemployment rate under Reagan went from 7.6% to 9.7-9.8% in the summer after his inaugural, and remained at that level for two years, before it began to decline in the summer of 1983. In "Obama-time", that would be the equivalent of the summer of 2011. Moreover, the economy did not begin improving until the Spring, 1983; in "Obama-time" that is Spring, 2011.

I suppose the point of noting this is that this country once cut a lot more slack to a Republican chief executive who, while inheriting an economy battered by inflation (with OPEC’s price gouging playing no small role at the time), nonetheless concocted economic policies that were more egregious towards the unemployed than those of the current occupant of An Oval Office. And while I’d like to see Obama and the congressional Dems do more about that, I believe they are actually trying to do what they can (and Senate Repugs, under The Sainted Ronnie R, had not yet perfected the art of sucking the life out of government through filibuster abuse).

Also, this post at the Daily Caller states as follows…

What’s more important than putting together a new budget for the federal government? If you’re one of the 219 representatives whose vote secured the passage of the so-called “DISCLOSE Act” in the House last Thursday, the answer is simple: providing incumbents with job security.

…

For the overwhelming majority of corporations who can’t afford to hire all the lawyers and accountants that are needed to cut through the reams of red tape, DISCLOSE amounts to a de facto ban on speech.

These restrictions are a blatant attempt to do an end-run around the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC, in which the court held that the government may not censor corporations’ political speech. The DISCLOSE Act’s supporters know, and expect, that the law will discourage many corporations from speaking up in this year’s elections. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who co-authored the bill with Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, has admitted as much, noting that the act will make corporations “think twice” before speaking out. Indeed, as he unveiled the act, he declared that, “The deterrent effect should not be underestimated.”

The authors of this nonsense, by the way, are Bert Gall, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which litigates nationwide against restrictions on free speech, and Joseph Gay, a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Institute (only one pic appears with the column, and I can’t tell you which one it is).

I’m not going to waste anyone’s time trying to untangle the specious legal reasoning on display here (particularly since the bill isn't even in its final form), which somehow leads to the conclusion stated above that the DISCOLOSE act could be harmful to corporations. Instead, I’ll just link to this writeup on the Act, which states as follows…

…the House version of the bill…requires special interest group officials to physically appear at the end of campaign ads they sponsor, acknowledging who contributes to their campaign fund, and to disclose their campaign related expenditures on their websites.

It also prohibits foreign controlled corporations from contributing to political campaigns.

Actually, my only objection to the House version of the bill is the NRA “carve out,” which is rightly in danger of being dropped in the Senate version of the bill, as noted here.

And let us not forget that the DISCLOSE Act is a remedy for the awful Citizens United ruling by The Supremes, which, as noted here, overturned two prior rulings on corporate funding of political campaigns. The Citizens United ruling also struck down a provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign financing law that banned corporations and unions from broadcasting electioneering communications in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before the general elections.

In response to the Citizens United ruling (with this being the original title of the group founded by Repug bottom-feeder Roger Stone), retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens stated as follows…

At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

(Also, to get a taste of Justice Antonin Scalia’s legendary arrogance, on this and other subjects, consider that his concurrence included the observation that “the dissent’s exploration of the Framers’ views about the ‘role of corporations in society’ (is) misleading, and even if valid, irrelevant to the text.”)

I’m not sure what final legislative form the DISCLOSE Act will take once it is eventually passed (hopefully) by both houses of Congress and reconciled in the committee process. But it will definitely be a step to correct the egregious wrong committed by the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR, and that can only be positive.

And for anyone who thinks the Repugs aren’t getting ready to take full advantage of this opportunity, read what Karl Rove and his pals at American Crossroads are up to here.

Finally, with the upcoming Fourth of July holiday in mind, I came across this editorial in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer by author Michael Kranish, which states as follows…

On July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson was writing at a table alongside other members of Congress in Philadelphia. This scene does not describe his work on the Declaration of Independence. Rather, he was taking notes on the nation's first congressional investigation - of American troops' disastrous campaign into Canada, in which Benedict Arnold played a leading role.

When the investigation was over a few weeks later, Jefferson remained one of Arnold's defenders, calling him a "fine sailor." Other revolutionary leaders were not so sure; one warned Jefferson that Arnold was "fiery, hot, and impetuous."

That turned out to be prescient. Less than five years later, the Revolution was on a razor's edge, and Arnold had turned traitor. In December 1780, he left British headquarters in New York with a fleet of 27 ships. His destination was Virginia, where an ill-prepared Jefferson was in his second one-year term as governor.

One of American history's most reviled men was on a mission against a state led by one of its most revered. The ensuing clash was one of the great yet strangely little-noted events of the Revolutionary War.

Arnold would gain the upper hand, repeatedly forcing Jefferson to flee the capital, Richmond. Other British forces later chased Jefferson all the way to Charlottesville. Eventually, he was forced to flee Monticello just minutes ahead of British soldiers, whose horses had galloped up his beloved mountain.

As stated, Benedict Arnold is quite rightly reviled for his betrayal of our country. However, I recently watched a History Channel program on Arnold which mentions some details left out here.

This Wikipedia article states that, after the failed attack on Quebec City in 1775, Arnold “distinguished himself in both Battles of Saratoga, even though General (Horatio) Gates, following a series of escalating disagreements and disputes that culminated in a shouting match, removed him from field command after the first battle.[40] During the fighting in the second battle, Arnold, operating against Gates' orders, took to the battlefield and led attacks on the British defenses. He was severely wounded in the same leg that was injured at Quebec late in the fighting. Arnold himself said it would have been better had it been in the chest instead of the leg.[41] (British Gen. John) Burgoyne surrendered ten days after the second battle, on October 17, 1777. In response to Arnold's valor at Saratoga, Congress restored his command seniority.[42]”

The program also noted that our troops referred the general in command at Saratoga as “Granny” Gates since they believed he was reluctant to engage the enemy (and the military expert who was interviewed, whose name escapes me at the moment, claimed that, had Arnold been killed at Saratoga, he would have gone down in history as a hero, since his traitorous acts came later).

Also, in his Inquirer editorial, Kranish alleges that the country voted for Jefferson and his Republican Party (though they bore no resemblance to the bunch claiming that name now) because the Federalists were more likely to engage England in war; that was certainly true of Alexander Hamilton, though John Adams, this country’s second president, successfully kept our country from going to war a second time so soon after the Revolution, which would have been devastating and endangered this country’s very survival.

I just thought I’d point out a little bit of colonial history that you can think about while everyone is getting sunburned at the shore or burning the hot dogs and weenies on the grill this weekend :- ).

Thursday Stuff

You have to cut The Orange One some slack here, really - I mean, how is he supposed to know from ants, seeing as how they can't get a sun tan...



...and keeping with the "ant" thing, I think I may have stumbled across the Repug theme for the fall campaign (maybe trying to take people back to the '80s wouldn't be a bad idea - that way, they might forget about "the naughts," or whatever the decade ending in '09 - ? - is going to be called).

Thursday Mashup (7/1/10)

(Posting may be questionable for tomorrow, by the way.)

I’m not going to waste too much time waxing nostalgic on the imminent departure of Larry King from CNN, but I have to give him credit here and here for calling out Moon Unit Bachmann, if for no other reason.

Yes, there are times when we watched him during news events that monopolized coverage for the entire day and beyond (death of Princess Diana, explosion of the space shuttle, etc., usually bad stuff now that I come to think of it), and I have to admit that it requires a particular talent to fill time and juggle multiple interviews during long stretches on the air. And Larry King most definitely has that talent.

And please, don’t let anybody con you into thinking that King is a casualty of our fractured corporate media and political culture. He’s had his time in the spotlight (and 25 years is a pretty darn good run), but as it must for all of us in one way or another, it’s time for him to step aside (besides, there are too many people making too much money over the conservative versus liberal shouting match that passes for informed discourse in this country to kill that golden goose, if you will, while Beltway shills like David Broder and his pals tut-tut over the oh-so-un-bipartisan incivility).

So good luck managing your finances among your 27 wives, Larry (personally, what did it for me with King was the kiss from Marlon Brando – bleaugh!).

Back to more familiar territory for me, Fix Noise tells us the following (here)…

Republicans are accusing Democrats of invoking Nazis after Vice President Biden sent out a fundraising message warning of the looming "GOP blitzkrieg" of dirty campaign tactics.

The e-mail was sent via the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In it, Biden warned that House Democrats would "be hit with a GOP blitzkrieg of vicious Swift-Boat-style attack ads, Karl Rove-inspired knockout tactics, thinly veiled attempts at character assassination and Tea Party disruptions."

Republicans took exception at the characterization, given that "blitzkrieg" was a term to describe Germany's military offensives during World War II. A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner told The New York Daily News that "invoking the Nazis' crimes against humanity in a political debate is simply inappropriate."

So “invoking the Nazis” is inappropriate, huh (and yes, it is)?





In response, I have only this to say:

Halt die Fresse, wingnuts (I’ll let you, dear reader, search for the translation – and by the way, you will note that Boehner didn’t say that Biden was wrong).

Update: Even though I STILL can't embed their vids - heckuva job, MSNBC! - K.O. had a good comeback on the whole "blitzkrieg" thing here, along with some lamentable idiocy from Kathleen Parker that was so stupid, it gave me a headache just to consider posting about it (what was that Pulitzer for again?).

Update 7/14/10: Oh, and let's not forget this either (h/t Atrios).

Since I’m not sure what will be happening tomorrow posting-wise, I wanted to make sure not to end the week without sampling the comedy stylings of former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm (here)…

This week the country was treated to some mid-summer levity as a bunch of U.S. House members manufactured and professed grave concern and quite possibly outrage about the possibility of ongoing political corruption -- way over there in Afghanistan.

This is the upside-down red-blooded American political institution where folks have stored $90,000 in cash in their food freezers. Doesn't everyone? Where phone calls from substantial political donors get passed right on through to the elected member while ordinary citizens can leave a message.

…

Now, as for the $787 billion approved 16 months ago for stimulating the domestic economy, a sum almost 197 times larger than the controversial Kabul aid package, well, that money is obviously in safe, clean, English-speaking American hands. No need to examine that spending too closely.

Malcolm’s idiotic jibes notwithstanding, this story tells us that $4 billion in aid to Afghanistan is being cut because of allegations that our tax dollars are going to Afghan warlords (would that Obama’s predecessor had taken such a step, or at least bothered to account for the billions that were funneled into Mesopotamia without accounting for where the money went and how it was used).

And if Malcolm or anyone else has any questions about how the funds for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are being allocated, all you need do is click here.

But if he included that link, of course, that would imply that Malcolm would be practicing something approximating "fair and balanced" punditry. And when I think of that cockeyed notion, all I can say is this...

ROFLMAO!!!!

Finally, it seems that this has been a big week for Repug U.S. House Rep Paul Ryan of Wisconsin; he gave the GOP response to Obama’s weekly radio address last Saturday and said the following (here)…

“Talk about a recipe for disaster: Democrats are offering no budget, no priorities, and no restraints – yet all their taxing, borrowing, and spending continues unchecked,” says Ryan, the top Republican on the budget committee.

“With this budget failure – a first in the modern era – Democrats are missing a critical opportunity to provide the fiscal discipline economists say is needed to create private-sector jobs and boost our economy,” Ryan also says.

(And this was after the Repugs voted against the Dem budget because of taxes on Big Oil and the "banksters," while crying poor mouth at an extension of unemployment benefits...and speaking of which, except for John Edwards Ensign, Lugar and "Err, Err" Voinovich...well, I just see a pattern here, that's all, y'all.)

Ok, time for just a little perspective.

As noted here, Ryan was elected to Congress in 1999. That would make him a member of the 109th Congress, which was run by his party.

And as the Center for American Progress tells us here…

The 109th Congress left office in the early hours of Saturday morning, December 9, having logged fewer days of legislative activity than even the infamous “Do-Nothing Congress” of 1948. Notably absent from the following list of last-minute “accomplishments” is comprehensive immigration reform, a minimum wage increase, and nine out of 11 appropriations bills needed to fully fund federal activity for the 2007 fiscal year.

The failure to pass a working budget for the federal government—the fundamental constitutional task of Congress—highlights the failures of the conservative leadership of the departing Congress.

The gall of the modern-day Repug party is almost too contemptible for words.

And Irrational Spew Online gives “props” to Ryan here for his talk to the AEI on the budget, in which Ryan said “the economy is going off a fiscal cliff” (not a single syllable uttered about unemployment, apparently).

Well, Ezra Klein took a look at Ryan’s budget proposal here and tells us as follows…

As you all know by now, the long-term budget deficit is largely driven by health-care costs. To move us to surpluses, Ryan's budget proposes reforms that are nothing short of violent. Medicare is privatized. Seniors get a voucher to buy private insurance, and the voucher's growth is far slower than the expected growth of health-care costs. Medicaid is also privatized. The employer tax exclusion is fully eliminated, replaced by a tax credit that grows more slowly than medical costs. And beyond health care, Social Security gets guaranteed, private accounts that CBO says will actually cost more than the present arrangement, further underscoring how ancillary the program is to our budget problem.

An important note to understanding how Ryan's budget saves money: It's not through privatization, though everything does get privatized. It's through firm, federal cost controls. The privatization itself actually costs money.

…

You can argue whether this cost control is better or worse than other forms of cost control. But it's a blunt object of a proposal, swung with incredible force at a vulnerable target.

…

I wouldn't balance the budget in anything like the way Ryan proposes. His solution works by making care less affordable for seniors. I'd prefer to aggressively reform the system itself so the care becomes cheaper, even if that causes significant pain to providers. I also wouldn't waste money by moving to a private system when the public system is cheaper.

And yes, you’re right – I scurrilously failed to include Klein’s complimentary language towards Ryan for so much as even having a set of ideas, regardless of how draconian they are.

The net effect is still the same, though. Despite our corporate media’s infatuation with Ryan’s presumed back-to-basics simplicity, his fiscal policy would be emblematic of his party; the full flowering of the Repugs’ “ownership society,” in which those with means will succeed, while those without will have their savings drained, health care denied, and “kicked to the curb” for their trouble.