Motley Moose – Archive

I know a lot of my friends on the right are stressed about the Democrat’s healthcare bill, so here’s a bit of positive news that might help just a tad:

Politico has this:

“The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the health reform plan will cost $940 billion over 10 years, but will trim the federal deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years and $1.2 trillion in the second ten years, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said. Those deficit numbers should help ease the worries of deficit hawks on the fence about supporting the bill.”

Saving $1,330,000,000,000 has to be a good thing.

Consider this an HCR Open Thread.

The dynamics of landslides have been intriguing researchers for decades.  What looks like a stable edifice slowly accumulates structural weaknesses below the surface.  Day by day for weeks, years or even centuries these flaws deepen and widen and spread throughout the underlying stratum.  One day some straw will break the camel’s back, the outer facade of strength and stability begins to crumble  and the whole thing comes tumbling down.  

A variety of feedback loops begin to accelerate the activity once things start to fall.  Landslides that logic would dictate should do no more than create a pile of rubble at the bottom of the slope have been recorded running for miles over flat ground and flattening everything in their paths.

All of this should be not the least reassuring to those on the US political Right who have been hoping for a New Ultra Conservative Nation founded on the ideologies of Glenn Beck and others of the species Conservatus Preposterous.  The cracks have been there all along, the slip has already begun and the destructive momentum is building with every passing moment.

TurboTax has joined a growing group of companies who as of today number at one hundred and twenty.  These are the companies who had been sponsors of the Glenn Beck Show who have pulled their support.  Turbotax ran ads on the Glenn Beck Show for two days before issuing this statement:

Thanks everyone for your feedback, & for reminding us of what we value. We’ve pulled advertising from the Glenn Beck show.

As the swallows to Capistrano issue in a new spring every year, so too do the increasing glints of sanity we see around us harken to a warming period ahead where the vicious Tea-stained winds of the waning season fade into memory.

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Tea Partying Far-Right-Loonistan (AKA: GOP v.2010) has been having identity crises left and, er, right recently. On the one hand we have Florida Republican congressman Stephen Precourt loyally pushing to remove tax breaks from film shoots featuring gay characters: apparently part of the “No Job Left Behind” effort Florida’s Republican lawmakers have been pursuing, which so-far has successfully pushed the Sunshine State from third to below-tenth in movie-making.  In the other hand  California Republican state congressman Roy “God-Fearing Paragon of Heterosexual Manliness” Ashburn – who never met a piece of anti-gay legislation he couldn’t fiercely defend – tearfully announced his insatiable desire for other God-Fearing Paragons of Heterosexual Manliness, like the passenger in his official state vehicle whom he picked up in a gay bar before getting busted for driving drunk.

Courtesy Probably Bad News

Perhaps they aren’t turned off.  Maybe they’re just terrified of being caught looking.

Consider this an Open Thread.

Across California and some other states on Thursday night, thousands of students marched in protest of increasing tuition fees.  At 7pm Pacific Time this evening I found myself amidst one such protest as it moved through the streets of San Francisco.  It was a spirited and enthusiastic event and both the police and protesters kept their cool.  Interstate 880 was simultaneously closed to traffic by other groups of protesters.  Large protests were reported across California in Los Angeles, Berkley and other cities and in a total of 30 other states.

Politico is announcing that it is a go for reconciliation on Health Care Reform.  This will come as a blow to the Tea Party and to much of Left Blogistan, but sometimes you just have to succeed no matter who it offends.

Sen. Tom Harkin tells POLITICO that Senate Democratic leaders have decided to go the reconciliation route for health care reform. The House, he said, will first pass the Senate bill after Senate leaders demonstrate that they have the votes to pass reconciliation in the Senate.

Do you think it is ever time to chill out, or is hyperventilation the only acceptable route?

This is an Open Thread.

If the 8.8 stands this will put this shaker in the top ten in recorded history.  Chile is experienced with earthquakes and much more capable of dealing with the aftermath (Chilean teams went to Haiti to help with search and rescue), but this is nonetheless an enormous event.  The epicenter was 22 miles underground 200 miles from Concepcion, and has also caused damage in Santiago including the main terminal at the airport there.

Tsunami warnings have been issued for Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific nations.

The story is unfolding, I leave this diary to be updated by others.  I will be travelling most of the day.

Image courtesy Puggal.com

The once-beloved savior of the Tea Party – Scott Brown – is now Satan Incarnate to the Far Right (which has been becoming synonymous with “the Right”).  The Tea Party Conference was, at best, a strange occasion.  CPAC seemed to have as many sessions on how to beat the GOP as it did on winning against Democrats.

And the $15B Jobs Bill just passed the Senate on a vote of 70-28.

Is The Krazy beginning to drain away from the actual political function of the Republican party, or is it just a hiatus?

This is an Open Thread.

As the second year of his first term cranks up, President Obama is perhaps showing some of the maturity that comes with having been around the block already.  Perhaps he is following a plan he has intended all along.  In either case, he is showing a set of canines that Congress had forgotten about.

The New York Times is reporting that he is planning a raft of executive action in the face of congressional gridlock, something that will either light a fire under legislators on both sides of the aisle, leave them standing looking fooolish – or both.

With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.