Click HERE for ProgressNowNevada
Maven is a Survivor.
“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” Albert Pike
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 16:58 
This was where I was directed to by an intriguing little banner ad whilst browsing the latest crazy on the Fox News website.
It’s by Sue Lowden, wannabe replacement for Harry Reid, from Nevada.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 14:49 Fear and paranoia are not in short supply among the so-called conservatives that would have us believe that the decennial census amounts to unwarranted intrusion by the government in our private affairs.
Check out this worried citizen/patriot:
See his white hair? He’s really 29 years old, but this is what undue worry about nothing gets you.
The New York Times had this to say, in an editorial:
EditorialOn the Importance of Being Counted
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 14:23 Doesn’t anybody find it puzzling that one man could have single-handedly been responsible for the evils of health care reform … uh, supposing that health care reform is, of course, completely unnecessary.
Aside from listing all the ways Harry Reid is about to take over the world, with Nancy Pelosi at his side, don’t you wonder why Tea Bag Republicans like Sue Lowden never mention that there could ever be anything wrong with the system?
Is it all just grand? Really?
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 14:05 Late last week a top-secret RNC PowerPoint presentation found its way to the press, and the contents were pretty unbelievable. You probably saw this image in the news:
It’s been a long time since I watched cartoons with my kids, but I recall Scooby Doo as a pretty good character. He solved mysteries and caught the bad guys, pretty impressive — especially for a dog. But you know, it’s true what they say: politics is a very rough business.
To that end, you probably didn’t see this image in the news:
Monday, March 8, 2010 at 22:42 Hey, you sensible, normal people in Minnesota - and I’m hoping my relatives there will listen. Please, support Tarryl Clark, and get rid of that crazy bitch Michelle Bachmann. Send Michelle out to stump with her dear friend, Sarah.
Monday, March 8, 2010 at 22:02 Well, at least somebody should give this erstwhile hypocrite points for newfound honesty.
Good ol’ Roy says he was just trying to represent his homophobe constituents interests by voting against gay-rights measures.
Here’s a thought: if you’re going to be a standard bearer for the loony conservative right, you’d best watch your alcohol intake and quit hitting the gay bars.
GOP, california, gay, gay rights, roy ashburn in impurely maven Monday, March 8, 2010 at 21:40 It’s about people. Hard working people. And, it’s about insurance companies that don’t give a good god damn.
The battle will take place tomorrow at the Washington D.C. Ritz Carlton on 22nd Street.
Check here for details on how to be a part of it all.
Stacie is the mother of twin daughters, now 11, who were diagnosed with leukemia when they were 4. Both girls needed stem cell transplants and other cancer treatments. The twins survived, but the glands controlling their growth were damaged. Doctors recommended that they receive daily growth-hormone injections. But Stacie’s husband’s company had switched to CIGNA for health insurance, and CIGNA refused to cover the hormone shots. With $30,000 in medical debt, a mortgage, her husband’s brief unemployment and food costs, the family of six filed for bankruptcy in 2003. The twins now get their growth hormone drug free from Eli Lilly. But the family still pays about $4,012 a year in premiums to CIGNA, plus $650 co-pay for an annual cancer survivorship visit.
Tomorrow, Staci and a lot of other folks will descend on the insurance companies, who are having a conference in DC and plotting how to kill health reform at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on 22nd Street. They’re going to shut down their conference and stop them and business as usual, and do whatever it takes to succeed… including make citizens arrests.
Stay tuned!
Friday, March 5, 2010 at 20:33 In a post by The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein today, a big time insurance broker gave Wall Street a briefing on plans in the offing by the nation’s larger insurers to take full advantage of their near monopoly status in too many markets.
Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 17:16 You’ve got to hand it to Michael Bennet - of course he’s a Democrat, he’s trying to do something productive! - of Colorado. Today I got an email to support a petition he’s running to change the stupid rules on the use of the filibuster in the Senate.
The filibuster isn’t inherently stupid or evil. Unfortunately, stupid and evil people are using it in a abusive manner that is slowing down the important business for the narrow agendas of a few intent on disrupting the democratic process.
This isn’t the filibuster of the movies. We aren’t dealing with Jimmy Stewart, and the battles of the ‘little guy’. This is about stopping guys like Sen. Jim Bunning trying to stop a 30 day extension of unemployment benefits.
If you complain that Congress isn’t working, then help Bennet.
Read on:
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 21:16 It looks like healthcare has been resuscitated and the public option may have a life yet, but what the heck happened to the needed financial reforms that every economist out there knows we have to have in order to avoid a repeat of 2008?
While critical legislation languishes - often due to arrogant Republican intransigence - you can almost hear the wind being knocked out of Dems across the land as they sit back wondering where all the excitement went.
First:
Op-Ed Columnist, Paul Krugman, in The New York Times
Financial Reform Endgame
So here’s the situation. We’ve been through the second-worst financial crisis in the history of the world, and we’ve barely begun to recover: 29 million Americans either can’t find jobs or can’t find full-time work. Yet all momentum for serious banking reform has been lost. The question now seems to be whether we’ll get a watered-down bill or no bill at all. And I hate to say this, but the second option is starting to look preferable
Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 20:58 This is an astounding interview - too long to put onto YouTube for an embed code. I hope you’ll use the link to watch….
From Bill Moyers:
You may not believe this, but the two marquee lawyers who fought each other all the way to the Supreme Court to decide whether Al Gore or George W. Bush would become president are at it again. But this time they’re fighting as allies to defend marriage equality.
It’s true. Ted Olson, a conservative, and David Boies, a liberal, are in the middle of a case that, win or lose, they expect, will wind up at the Supreme Court, just like Bush v. Gore. The former adversaries have united in support of core American values: diversity, equality and tolerance. They’re key players in one of the most important civil rights trials of the last decade. It’s a pivotal legal action that could change our society, but which has escaped the attention of much of the country.
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 22:55 Quite a lot actually, according to Juan Cole in Reader Supported News:
Gates Wants Europe to Beggar Itself on War Expenditures the Way the US Has
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates decries Europe for general antiwar sentiment, unwillingness to beggar itself with expenditures on war.
But as far as I can tell, Europe is the world’s largest economy and got there without any recent substantial wars except those the US dragged it into. Moreover, the fastest-growing economy for the past nearly 30 years has been China, which spends a fraction on their military of what the US spends on its, and, aside from a skirmish with Vietnam in the early 1980s, has been at peace. Apparently massive war expenditures are unrelated to economic growth or prosperity.
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 22:31 Late note:On Wednesday, members of the House voted to eliminate the exemption for health insurers. But you can bet good money that it will be fought tooth and nail by lobbyists as it winds its way through the other Do-Nothing Chamber, AKA The Senate. In fact, the health insurance lobbyists are gearing up for this last fight as we read this.
Bust the Health Care Trusts
By Robert B. Reich
Feb. 23, 2010, The New York Times
MY health insurer here in California is Anthem Blue Cross. So far, my group policy hasn’t been affected by Anthem’s planned rate increase of as much as 39 percent for its customers with individual policies — but the trend worries me, as it should everyone. Rates are soaring all over the country. Insurers have been seeking to raise premiums 24 percent in Connecticut, 23 percent in Maine, 20 percent in Oregon and a wallet-popping 56 percent in Michigan. How can insurers raise prices as much as they want without fear of losing customers?
Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 23:10 This just in. Utah Republican - what would you expect - legislator, Mark Madsen, came up with a brilliant idea.
Let’s celebrate the birth of John M. Browning - the famed gun manufacturer who was born in Ogden, Utah - on…. wait for it ….
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Unlike Senator Marsden, the Utah NAACP has their head pulled completely out of their backside and told him they didn’t really think it would be such a good idea.
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 22:36 Oh, how I wish they could take a state and go the fuck away. Could we give them New Jersey (sorry, Billie!), or maybe my old home state of Florida?
Which one could we do without?
Really.
Here’s the newsletter that’s making the buzz, from a gaggle of wingnuts in North Carolina … if you didn’t think they were screwy before…
I remember, back in the day, when a lot of True Believers (Conservatives before it went totally looney) told people like myself that if we didn’t ‘like it’ we should leave it and go elsewhere.
Uh, now there’s a concept for the Tea Party. Go elsewhere.
Any suggestions?
Niger is without a government right now, as is Haiti.
Any takers, or are the Tea Baggers just that chicken shit?
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 22:24 This is exactly what I am talking about in the Main Journal, Friday Fish Wrap post.
We have less to fear from Al Queda than from these irresponsible Tea Party types.
From Jeff Babbin, editor of Human Events, at the CPAC Conference, in reference to rabid anti-taxer Grover Norquist:
“And let me just say, I’m really happy to see Grover today. He was getting a little testy in the past couple of weeks. And I was just really, really glad that it was not him identified as flying that airplane into the IRS building.”
As you might hope, the IRS union chief, Colleen Kelley, didn’t find it amusing:
I am shocked and outraged that Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events, would dare to make light of the tragic event that took place in Austin this week by joking about someone flying an airplane into a government building. This is precisely the kind of irresponsible rhetoric that can turn frustration with policies and politics into attacks on public servants and can contribute to misguided rage against federal workers and threaten their safety.
Mr. Babbin owes IRS employees and all federal employees an apology. We need a more responsible level of discourse in our country about the work of government. Such callous, insensitive statements have no place in our country’s public dialogue.
Here are the speakers on the scary speakers roster at CPAC 2010:
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 22:21 I’m asking for votes, here.
What was the … uh, point, she’s trying to make?
You decide.
Iraq, ann coulter, coulter, right wing, wars, wwII in impurely maven Friday, February 19, 2010 at 22:02 I don’t give a rats ass whether he apologized or not. This guy is so completely lame and hokey, that he needs to be butt kicked out of the stadium.
Real men don’t apologize and go to sex rehab clinics. They take their lumps from the wife and/or the attorneys and move on, financially poorer we hope but satisfied that they got a boatload of bootie.
I hope every righteous black man in America is laughing at this sad little sissy golfing prick.
I hear that Tiger just wants nothing more than to go back to doing what he does best, and while he’s at it, play a couple rounds of golf.
golf, tiger, tiger woods in impurely maven
