A Picture is Worth a Thousand Dollars, Maybe a Vote or Two

From the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.

Half the country thinks Obama's tax plan will raise their taxes. They're wrong. Please tell them.

Do you know any millionaires who need tax cuts? The handful I know well are old enough to remember the 90-something rates of Dwight Eisenhower. Also, McCain's plan loses revenue for the U.S. Shrinking government to aid billionaires. Great. Just great.

Samantha Bee Loves Palin's Gynecology

The Daily Show simply can't be beat. BTW, if this fails to buffer properly, go to Sam Bee's cast page and click on the video. For whatever reason the Comedy Central site runs the clips without a hitch.

McCain: Perspective, Pathos

During my phone canvassing shift last night I had a conversation with the Bolducs of Edgecomb, a self-described "military family" voting for McCain in November. I wish they could see this video.

The One School in McCain's Speech

Yes, yes, I know I promised local news. How did I know Palinmania would strike and that McCain's campaign would be exposed as so doltish?
The latest example of incompetence came in the first minutes of his acceptance speech last night. In the first minutes the Big Brother screen behind him showed a picture of a mansionesque building that some apparently mistook for one of his homes.
Turns out it is Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. Apparently, McCain's people meant to show Walter Reed Hospital and failed to gather the right image from cyberspace.
Talking Points Memo exposed this gaffe this morning and it's been picked up by ABC at minimum.
Turns out this is the only time a school of any kind showed up in his long and mostly soporific speech.

The Cayman Islands of Lobbying

With both conventions behind us, the opportunity for the secret, i.e. out of journalists' view, lavish massaging of politicians has come to an end. Watch Matt Taibbi call out the corporate arm twisters and the sham of the "free speech zones" at both conventions on Bill Maher's HBO's Real Time on 29.Aug.08.

Your Weekly John McCain Video

Yes, it's edited; yes, the voice over is over the top; yes, it demonstrates that McCain's characteristic objectification of women could sink him.

Why I Read DailyKos

Lithium Cola has written the best analysis of the Palin pick I've seen or heard--and I've been obsessed with her since early Friday morning. In it, LC compellingly describes this presidential election's unfortunate similarity to the last two, as well as one remarkable difference, Barack Obama.
Here's just one of the starkly resonant paragraphs.

Pluralists do not want to address metaphysical questions on the public-political stage. This is not because they think they cannot win but because they think they should not win. Religio-philosophical victory in a political -- as opposed to dinner-table -- setting has, pluralists think, no upside. We get along as a people in the first place because we first agreed that religio-philosophical issues are not something we need to agree upon. We don't debate those matters at the ballot box. Rather, we need only agree on the best ways to further our society to the benefit of all, so that we may in our own ways address questions of purpose and meaning at home.

As of 0717 Sunday there are over 450 comments. Many of them are worth reading. I'm off to Corrie's triathlon in Rockport. More on that later.

The Maine RedState

Just re-acquainted myself with As Maine Goes. Though I said I was deep in recreation mode, as I looked for facts on the opposition to Dirigo this morning, I fell into this forum run by Scott K. Fish. Our local Representative Jon McKane (R-Damariscotta) comments there frequently and is not all that popular there, at least not with some who objected to McKane's response to a conservative state radio program being downsized.
I'd been there before following McKane's and others' comments.
Like RedState and other conservative cyber spots the membership is either limited or monitored like a hawk. However, Gerald at Turn Maine Blue says he posts on AMG with impunity, so far. I think he must have a cloaking mechanism.
All I can say is when they circle the wagons and shoot inward, they're better shots than us liberals. Jeez, they're downright mean.
[Update: 2030 24.Aug -- This just in: Thanks to AMG, Snoozette's visitor index has jumped the shark. I am honored by the attention.
Since I have not recently presented my case to the Caesar of the AMG forum, Scott K. Fish, I cannot express my gratitude to AMGers directly.
The process of making a comment would require me seeking Fish's approval. Sadly, I can't remember if I once had his blessing and didn't use it enough or if he turned me down. Nevertheless, this is hardly the open style of civic debate one might expect in the internet age. My blog is open for any to comment, yet over 70 AMGers have visited with not a peep. Of course there are two pages of comments from those protected behind the walls erected by Mr. Fish.
Were I able to get a word in edgewise amongst all the backslapping and congratulations, I might join in. Gerald is indeed reasonable and it's reasonable that he would be allowed to comment on AMG. My point in this original post, apparently unclear to most who have commented over on Fish's forum, was that participants who seem mostly to agree with each other are needlessly nasty to each other as a matter of course. Far be it for me to defend Jon McKane, but this message from MGReilly
"And still crickets from Mr. McKane.....thinking up some new taxes to vote for....you horses [sic] behind....." criticizes McKane for silence.
If some, as on the AMG thread dedicated to my post, would like to debate the relative toughness of liberals vs. conservatives, o.k., but that really wasn't my initial issue.

Recreation Central; the Real McCain

These are the last days of Eli's summer with me before we re-enter the school treadmill--insert long story of domestic violence, Maine family court, incompetent guardians ad litem, etc.--so am in major recreation mode. We're headed to Alna Dem's house for kayaking and swimming today and to the beach with Andrea and her children. (Yes, all my friends are bloggers.)
I plan, when I get back to the business of blogging, to write about Damariscotta's Miles Memorial Hospital bucking the trend shown in a new national study that says only 36 percent of women who start breastfeeding their babies are still doing so six months later. The numbers for exclusive b'feeding are even worse.
Mike and I are looking at CSA vs. grocery store numbers for a story on the local effects of high food prices. We also would like to show exactly how the attempt at a "People's Veto" of the latest effort to fund Dirigo Health Care is actually a corporate veto. Wouldn't it be rich if Anthem were funding it?
'Til we get rolling again, watch this latest filmmaker Robert Greenwald--of Outfoxed fame--video. It's especially poignant in light of McCain's statement this week that he didn't know exactly how many homes he owned. Yo John! You own 10 homes. That's 10 more than the tens of thousands of people losing their homes because of immoral, unethical banking practices brought to you by Republican-blessed, corporate lobbyist-driven deregulation.
Eli and I are Oscar Mike.
[Post swim and kayak update: McCainś people say he can´t remember how many houses he has because he was a prisoner of war.]

Dirigo Threatened by So-Called People's Veto

At the Lincoln County Dems' Lobster Feast Sunday afternoon, I asked House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree what had happened to her bill that deftly solves many of the financing problems for Dirigo, Maine's beleaguered attempt to bring health care to all that state's citizens.
Dirigo is meant to help fill the abyss between MaineCare's straight-up poor and those who have private insurance. In 2005, according to the Urban Institute's study linked below, there were more than 124,000 uninsured in this state. Does anyone think that number has dropped? According to the 2,000 census posted at Maine.gov there were 1,274,923 people in the state. (These numbers seem screwy to me. Way more than 10 percent of the people I know have no health care coverage.)
Pingree explained that the legislature had passed her bill in April, but that a People's Veto of the bill would be on the November ballot.
People's Veto, my wooden clog-encased foot. It will not be the people paying for the zillion dollar campaign sure to confuse and misrepresent the issues. Those hefty advertising bills will be covered by insurance companies, small business organizations and their lobbies, though I suppose the people will eventually pay and pay dearly.
The leader's bill asks for taxes on soda, beer, wine and privately paid health insurance (including employer paid insurance) to fill the gaps between the whining Anthem's foot-dragging support for the program and the discounted premiums Dirigo offers. Though any increase in the cost of private insurance is a problem pill, and taxes on soda, beer and wine are hardly progressive, the options for this program are limited. The logic, if I understand correctly, is that the pool is so small right now that costs are prohibitive, and if the pool could really embrace ALL those who need it--count me as one of these--the program would be much closer to self supporting.
The Sun-Journal has a wishy washy editorial about the referendum written before the signatures for inclusion on the ballot had been finalized yesterday.
The complexity of Maine's health insurance picture is laid out in a recent study by the Urban Institute. There's no doubt that available funds are not being accessed by those who need them.

Beyond the magnitude of the estimates, perhaps the major point to take away from this report is that the presence of large numbers of uninsured people and their inevitable need to receive health care has resulted in a complex mosaic of government programs and private initiatives to defray the costs of that care. In the absence of large public hospitals or subsidies to offset the costs of care to uninsured Mainers (such as those often provided as Medicaid DSH payments), understanding how providers in Maine serve uninsured patients will require further study.

Committing to a single gap-filling program--still making three programs, MaineCare, Dirigo and private insurance--would go far to simplifying this picture.
We can bet that the insurance companies, the Chamber of Commerce, restaurant lobbies and all manner of business organizations will support this so-called People's Veto--an ironic euphemism disguising a corporate veto of the peoples' best interests.
In the far corner, the Maine People's Alliance is gearing up to push for universal health care when they might be bailing Dirigo's boat to keep it afloat. In the other corner, the corporate wave. As this tsunami washes over the state of Maine, I wonder if the people will pull together to beat the tide?