But it must be the right reform: the establishment of a national single-payer style healthcare reform system by expanding the existing Medicare system to cover all Americans. According to a new “Single Payer/Medicare for All: An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation” study released today by the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, such a reform would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues into the economy. This reform would, according to the study, add $100 billion in wages to the currently sputtering U.S. economy.

I’m all for single payer

So PEBO met with the neocons. When’s he gonna meet with the KKK?

If I see the b-word one more time…

BT, the b-word only gets used when the D-s are in power,
so what are you complaining about?

Barney Frank sez the situation would have been even worse without TARP. No talk about an alternative that might have actually improved the situation.

Biden:

This is not a partisan question as it relates to any one of these three countries that we visited. And I really appreciate the fact he [GrahamCracker] came along. And I think you’ll find we’re pretty much on the same page.

Must.Not.Make.Mark.Foley.Joke.

With that logic, I guess since he also met with Rachel Maddow then he’ll be meeting with the International Socialist group as well as the KKK? Sounds good to me.

Never thought about it before, but wouldn’t meeting with the KKK potentially take away some of their power to recruit members? I could see a lot of people on the fence about joining thinking, “Damn, he doesn’t seem so bad.”

To say one shouldn’t meet with the KKK sounds a lot like a Neocon saying we shouldn’t meet with Iran or Hamas, which Obama has also talked about doing. It’s good strategy on Obama’s part I think. Seems to getting the Reich Wing Noize Machine in a tizzy, so the meeting with the nutball pundits could very be speeding up their fracturing. Divide and conquer.

Sure, gotta draw a line somewhere, but any group with significant influence might be worth meeting with, so NAMBLA wouldn’t count and not even sure KKK would anymore, but The Always Wrong About Everything pundits makes a lot of sense.

Your analogies are not on point.

1. There are no socialist groups of any import.
2. The “progressives” PEBO met with (didn’t dine) aren’t very progressive for the most part.
2. Iran is an actual country and Hamas was duly elected.

fyi – list of today’s hearings (with links, etc) is up at oxdown: Six more Congressional Nomination Hearings are scheduled for today: Ambassador to the UN (Rice), Interior (Salazar), Attorney General (Holder), DOD (Lynn, Hale, Flournoy, Johnson), DHS (Napolitano), SEC (Schapiro), Council of Economic Advisors (Romer, Goolsbee, Rouse), and FED Board (Tarullo). Also hearings on green jobs, health IT, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, and the economy in Indian Country.

Rich Lowry as stand-up comedian [I refuse to link]:

… the “Scooter” Libby mess that was the highest-profile “scandal” of an otherwise relatively clean administration.

Morning All :)

I don’t know who this is, but it is some really good writing.

‘Politics and reality.The two are woven like two disparate threads in to a garment that attempts to fit all. Belief in what comes out of the mouths of politicians is a flaw that has led to the justification of horrendous acts that ordinary people would never normally tolerate. Politicians, supported by a bought and paid for media machine, have an uncanny ability to distort reality and that which would be normally morally repugnant to a reasonable person becomes acceptable on the grounds of the perceived exigencies of the day.’
http://meltdown101.livejournal.com/

i’m actually ok with PEBO meeting with everyone – including the KKK. my objection is to what he is, apparently, not saying to them (like why what they are doing is wrong, etc) and who he is not meeting with (see progressives).

Ahhh, been waiting for you to show up. I’d like you to listen to A Financial Katrina – Remarks on the Crisis and tell me what you think of it. The accompanying slides are very interesting. I’ve not been able to find a transcript of the panel.

great quote. thanks.

I think the POTUS might have better things to do with his time than to meet with unrepresentative extremist groups, like KKK and neocons.

thanks. will listen now.

Wow, I was just over at the CNN political ticker comment thingy. There are some scarily under-informed folks posting comments..

There’s no hurry. I figure on bein’ around another 30 years or so.

thanks selise,

don’t forget to call your Senators for no on Holder

It’s an infinite loop. They listen to the pablum on CNN then comment on the pablum they’ve just heard. It’s sorta like a dog chasing its tail.

According to one news report Krugman was invited to yesterday mornings meeting but was unable to attend. Do we know who was on the guest list?

heh. i put a link to ES’s diary in the list.

Somewhere on a thread yesterday I heard that Krugman declined, which I understood to mean that he didn’t want to attend, but perhaps I misinterpreted the situation.

9:45 a.m., in the transition office, President-elect Obama, meeting with: the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan, CNN’s Roland Martin, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the Washington Post’s Gene Robinson, the Boston Globe’s Derrick Z. Jackson, the one and only Maureen Dowd, the New York Times’s Frank Rich, the Wall Street Journal’s Jerry Seib, Atlantic political director Ron Brownstein, USA Today’s DeWayne Wickham and columnist E.J. Dionne Jr.

The Times’s Paul Krugman was invited, but did not attend.

David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs were also present.

Ambinder

That’s what I saw. I’m thinking, wtf, why would he decline meeting with Obama?

Thanks. Doesn’t say why Krugman didn’t attend. So it could be either that he was otherwise engaged or just said no. But if it was another engagement, I’d like to know what he considers more important than meeting with the next prez.

Huckleberry Makes Nice? It’s All Sweet, Except for the Prickles
Christy’s up

They went a whole hour and didn’t even have any cocktail wienies
122 hrs & 57 min

SD, that is the best, most honest assessment of the recent financial coup, pulled off by the neoliberal mindset (read, virtually the entire Ruling Class, America’s Own Ari$tocracy and the vast majority of the Political Cla$$, Republican AND Democrat) that I have heard. Professor David Harvey has nailed it, precisely!

A must-hear!

Thank you, SD.

DW

Krugman is not on the cocktail weenie circuit, and I’m sure there will be another opportunity. Perhaps he has met behind the scenes already.

So, the UN is a terra-ist b/c of the vote last week? Just wondering.

So, the UN is a terra-ist b/c of the vote last week? Just wondering.

That probably explains why Israel shelled the crap out of UN headquarters in Gaza. Just getting rid of more terrorists… /snark

Because he’s an academic and an economist who coincidentally writes a column, rather than a columnist as the rest of the invitees are?

If I were Krugman, I’d rather be invited to a discussion with other economists rather than waste my powers with that diverse and yet highly similar group of columnists.

Huh. I guess my friends active in this group think they’re “of import.”

http://www.internationalsocialist.org/

The International Socialist Organization has branches across the country. Our members are involved in helping to build a number of struggles: the movement to stop the war on Iraq, fights against racism and anti-immigrant scapegoating, the struggle for women’s rights like the right to choose abortion, opposing anti-gay bigotry, and standing up for workers’ rights. We are committed to building a left alternative to a world of war, racism and poverty.

Just saw a stack of their newspapers at a restaurant yesterday.

The analogies are not perfect, most aren’t, but “the point” seems right on even after re-reading. I’m making the case for meeting with enemies. You seem to disagree, at least without meeting (or is dining versus meeting “the point” and problem?) with people you deem to be polar opposites of those enemies. No matter, I’ll stop wasting your time, and mine.

Well, I’m thankful that there’s only five more days left for PEBO and that his name wasn’t something like Nathaniel Isaac Simpson.

DIGG is open.

w00t!

Awwwwwriiiiight!!!

very interesting, thanks. i especially like the cleveburg slides from cwru as i went to school there (a long time ago).

will have to give it a second, more focused listen though later (after holder hearings). will try to catch you tomorrow am if you are up for a discussion.

thanks again.

I can’t argue with that reasoning. he seems to becoming even more liberal as time goes on, which is reflected in his columns and books.

BIG HOORAY!!!

Thanks, boys. Everybody here at the lake will thank you for teaching me that! hee,hee (and I’ll quit cussin Microsoft now)

He may want to keep his distance. He was burned by the Clintons in ‘92, when they used his reputation by giving him the impression that he would be named Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, and then turned around and nominated Laura Tyson, who had diametrically opposed views on trade policy. He was pretty pissed, to say the least.

I think the POTUS might have better things to do with his time than to meet with unrepresentative extremist groups, like KKK and neocons.

can’t disagree.

more details please? what where their differences on trade (then and now)? thanks!

Nice to see ya. You’re welcome. I wanted to post it last night but it was gettin’ late and I was afraid it would just fade into the ether. I think Harvey’s got his shit together and got it in one bag.

Feurae rules the roost. No bout adoubt it. He’s so damn big he looks like a throw rug when he spreads out on the terrazzo floor. Not fat, big. Follows me around like a puppy. Is waiting at the door when I come home. Lurvs him some hands on lovin’.

Don’t get too complacent about M$. Windows will bite you in the butt any chance it gets.

Oh, and Elliott is a girl.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

edit – Windows Windoze

SD, been cussin them off and on since their first update years ago. Constant war between them and McAfee. Results in much of my own lack of education being blamed on Microsoft.

Didn’t know Elliott was a girl (more ignorance!). Thanks for the tip. I’ll apologize.

Have a wonderful day no matter what they throw at you out there.

My apologies, Elliott, just got the word from SD that you are a girl.

Thanks for all your help.

SD, I followed your link to the David Harvey lecture. Bears a lot of thought, but I was leaning in his direction after he said, “…Sachs government…”.

You pups just keep pushing the envelope of my intellectual capacity! I ‘preciate it, though.