Happy Buy Nothing Day…. Or as we call it in the Maynard-Lao household, Buy Nothing but a Chick-fil-A Sandwich and a Movie Ticket Day.
Seriously, however far along the anti-Black Friday continuum you are, here’s hoping you have a wonderful day, not being trampled with your family.
[See also Reverend Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping.]
Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at MarkMaynard.com.
Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino went on FOX News yesterday to talk about the recent incidents at Fort Hood, and, in the process, took the opportunity to remind America that there were no terrorist attacks under the Bush administration.
That’s right. The 9/11 attacks, and the anthrax attacks which followed them apparently took place during Democratic administrations. Here’s her quote, if you can believe it: “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.”
[note: Perino, just a few days before this, was nominated by President Obama to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the group responsible for overseeing the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and all other non-military broadcasts made by the U.S. federal government.]
While, as a good ACLU member, the thought of having to sign something like a loyalty oath makes me want to recoil in horror, I think there might be some merit to this new program that they’re considering in Germany. Given the current difficulty they’re having in assimilating immigrants, they’re considering the use of an “integration contract,” which aspiring immigrants would have to sign before entering the country. The contract would serve to affirm that the individual seeking residency shared some baseline of common values, such as a belief in “freedom of speech” and “women’s rights.” Of course, I’d have to read the whole thing before saying whether or not I like the idea, but, at a very high level, I don’t see anything wrong with asking aspiring residents whether or not they share some common values that we feel are necessary to a functioning Democracy. I’m curious as to what others think. I suspect a lot of you will disagree with me.
I don’t have time to write a coherent piece this evening on the current status of the healthcare legislation winding its way through the Senate, but I did want to pass along a few links that I think you might find of interest.
First, there’s a good piece in the Washington Post about the fracturing alliance between Senate Democrats… Here’s a clip:
Democrats had little time to savor their weekend Senate health-care victory, as two of the lawmakers who voted to move the debate forward Saturday night indicated Sunday that they will not vote to pass the package if it includes a government-run insurance program.
Despite the success in the test vote, the fragile consensus in the Democratic caucus will face its greatest test yet as the health-care debate moves to the Senate floor and Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) struggles to stave off internal schisms. The cracks in the 60-member caucus are most obvious over the public insurance option.
One member of the Democratic caucus, independentSen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), reiterated Sunday that he will oppose any bill that contains a public option. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he called such a government-run plan “radical”…
Then, second, there’s this piece in the Huffington Post about how this fight over the so-called public option is playing out… Here’s a clip:
…While conservative members of the Democratic caucus threaten to block passage of health care reform if it includes a public health insurance option, a growing chorus of liberal lawmakers are making similar threats if the bill doesn’t have one.
Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement on Sunday that the bill must have a strong public option to win his vote.
“I strongly suspect that there are a number of senators, including myself, who would not support final passage without a strong public option,” he said. Not supporting final passage, however, is different than vowing to filibuster it and prevent it from even getting to a vote on final passage, as independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is now doing, hoping to strip the public option…
All that seems certain at this point is that Republicans are determined to stall as long as they can, for fear that passing healthcare legislation – any healthcare legislation – could be seen as a Democratic victory. According to recent reports, they’re now saying they need six weeks to consider the legislation before it can come to a vote, even though it’s highly unlikely that any from their side of the aisle would vote to support it… So it looks like we might have a long time to debate that public option.
