Comments from Left Field

Finally CFLF is back!

commcom — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 22:52:49 PDT

We have taken this site over and will be happy to continue the fantastic job Michael and Co was doing over nine years. We hope to continue to collect plenty of posting material as a monumental document of the “Zeitgeist” of living.

Best

Simon

Comments from Left Field is For Sale

Goose3five — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:22:22 PDT

for sale By fekaylius

On August 12, 2003, nearly nine years ago, I started this site with this post. I never could have imagined how much it would have changed and enriched my life. Over the years I have met some incredible people, had inspiring (and sometimes not so much) conversations, and learned more about myself and human nature than I thought possible.

It is with those great experiences that I have decided it is time to end the run of Comments from Left Field.

What If They Threw A War On Religion & Nobody Came?

matttbastard — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:10:06 PST

Sorry, Santorum-lovers — Religion Dispatch‘s Sarah Posner is right: when it comes to the so-called ‘war on religion’ there’s no ‘there’ there.

Watch:

Could it be…?

matttbastard — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:21:16 PST

This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country – the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age. There is no one else to go after other than the United States and that has been the case now for almost two hundred years, once America’s preeminence was sown by our great Founding Fathers.

He didn’t have much success in the early days. Our foundation was very strong, in fact, is very strong. But over time, that great, acidic quality of time corrodes even the strongest foundations. And Satan has done so by attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.

- Rick Santorum, 2008, doing the best goddamn Dana Carvey impression this side of Pappy Bush’s drawing room (Drudge Siren!)

Morning Maddow: “This Is What Republican Politics Is Like Now”

matttbastard — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 05:30:01 PST

A sincere mea culpa for the lack of content over the last several days. Was a holiday weekend in my neck of the tubes, so yrs truly decided to go all-in with some R&R time. Anyway, we are back and, baby, the Republicans are still fucking bat-shit. With the recent deluge of sonogram-rape legislation and so-called “personhood” bills being tabled across the US, it is all too apparent that the Grand Old Party is specifically and deliberately flinging teh crazyscat all over women’s rights.

Rachel & Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick have the 411. Watch it:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Morning Maddow: Aspirin ain’t just for headaches (but what about hypocrisy?)

matttbastard — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:38:22 PST

Yep — a picture indeed says a thousand words. With GOP culture-warriors going all-in against contraception (apart from Bayer Aspirin — am I right, ‘gals’?) one is again struck by just how far beyond the contemporary 21st century mainstream the former Party of Lincoln has defiantly strayed. The birth control battle (and yesterday’s virtually all-male House oversight committee hearing on, ahem, RELIGIOUS LIBERTY!!11) may not be, as Greg Sargent notes, a “Terry Schiavo moment” for Republicans, but it definitely represents a jolting departure from previous policy preference for many party stalwarts — including POTUS candidates, as Rachel explains in great detail.

Watch it:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Morning Maddow: “Construction Hats? Really?”

matttbastard — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 04:18:24 PST

Oh, look — yet another statement regarding Planned Parenthood services that apparently was not intended to be factual. This time it was purportedly Serious GOP Senate vet Orrin Hatch of Utah who decided to give facts the finger and proudly let his bull-feces flag fly. Alas, Sen. Hatch didn’t take too kindly when our hero confronted him with the awful truth (which, as per MC 900 Ft Jesus, has been out of style for at least 21 years — at least).

Watch it:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“Welcome to the 2nd decade in a row of humanitarian war.”

matttbastard — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:53:20 PST

During the Bush administration, Democrats often boasted that — unlike the president and his aides, who were consumed by millenarian dreams of remaking the Middle East in the image of American democracy — they were part of the “reality-based community.” In fact, the neoconservatives were paragons of modesty compared with the liberal interventionists and R2P supporters who saw in Libya and now see in Syria the chance to move one step closer to remaking the world in the image of the human rights movement. Infatuated by their own good intentions — and persuaded that their interventionist views incarnate a higher morality — those who view Libya as a triumph and Syria as an opportunity to cement the practice of humanitarian intervention are in full crusading mode. If the looming victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the failure of the democratic project in Iraq, and the fact that the most significant political outcomes of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Yemen, and Libya have been instability and the victory of political Islam have not chastened them — and clearly they haven’t — nothing will. Welcome to the second decade in a row of humanitarian war.

- David Rieff, ‘Save Us From the Liberal Hawks’

Related: LobeLog’s Jasmin Ramsey (h/t) surveys the range of debate over what the West can/should/will do re: Syria.

Morning Maddow: Mama Said Wonk You Out

matttbastard — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:56:00 PST

Get your wonk on, kiddies — sitting in for our hero is WaPo columnist and supreme numbers nrrrd Ezra Klein, crunching Obama’s proposed 2013 budget with former OMB Director Peter Orszag.

WATCH IT:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Related: AP’s agency-by-agency guide to the 2013 US budget

Monday Upper: Shorter USCCB — Forced Pregnancy Now, Forced Pregnancy Tomorrow, Forced Pregnancy Forever!

matttbastard — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:51:11 PST

Not much to say: Last week, Obama offered a deft political compromise to the resurgent birth control debate (yes, I just wrote that). Despite this, US Catholic officials refused to budge from their hardline, pro-forced pregnancy position (RELIGIOUS LIBERTY!) So why the sudden Papal insurgency vs the (real) 99%?

Chris Hayes talks with Father Bill Dailey, a Roman Catholic priest and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, who, with silky-sweet doe-eyed innocence, dismisses the Obama administration’s position on contraception as “gravely immoral and unjust” (yep, the Holy See is nothing if not well versed in grave immorality and injustice).

Watch it:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“What? Knickers? I Can Say ‘Knickers’!”

matttbastard — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 04:08:51 PST

Your AM dose of vicarious embarrassment, courtesy Raw Story:

And no, this isn’t the first time Outer Wingnuttia has tried to go where no ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Real American should ever dare venture:

The last time conservatives attempted to induce rapping at CPAC was in 2010, when they put a right-wing freestyle contest on the schedule. While it wasn’t officially canceled, virtually nobody attended anyway.

And people seriously wonder why POC aren’t down with the GOP (besides, y’know, the FUCKING RACISM).

h/t

Yes, TIME Magazine Thinks Americans Are Stupid.

matttbastard — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:41:55 PST

First:

Now:

h/t

Morning Maddow: Contraception, Culture Wars, and the Utter Hypocrisy of Republicans (Redux)

matttbastard — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:28:59 PST

Waitaminute — y’mean the GOP was FOR Obama’s suddenly controversial contraception legislation before they were against it? Oh, please — epic flip-flops are a longtime Republican trademark. Everyone’s favourite living argument for birth control has the 411.

Watch it:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Regressive U.S. Birth Control Battle: “Your health care benefits shouldn’t depend on who your boss is.”

matttbastard — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:07:26 PST

And speaking of vindictive Republican absurdity (h/t):

[Yesterday] morning, House Speaker John Boehner vowed in a House floor speech to overturn the provision in thePatient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that would require faith-affiliated hospitals and universities to include birth-control coverage in their employee health benefits. The provision, Boehner argued, “constitutes an unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country.”

In response, U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Lois Capps (D-CA) and Gwen Moore (D-WI), spoke out on behalf of the 99 percent–that is, the 99 percent of American women who have used birth control–arguing that the provision is a respectful balance between religious interests and individual conscience and freedom.

[...]

As it stands, the PPACA still includes a religious exemption, allowing houses of worship to refuse to offer contraception coverage in their employee health plans. But the National Conference of Catholic Bishops has been pressuring the Obama Administration for some time to broaden the religious exemption for contraceptive coverage to include Catholic or other religiously-affiliated schools, hospitals, universities and charities.

Speaker Boehner failed to mention that 28 states already require birth control coverage in employee health plans. Eight of those states don’t offer any religious exemption. Rep. Schakowsky argued that the religious exemption for houses of worship in the PPACA was a respectful compromise, and that many Catholic hospitals and universities already provide birth control coverage to their employees as a standard of care.

Surveys show that 99 percent of all women–and 98 percent of Catholic women–have used birth control at some point in their lives. “It’s not as controversial as they want you to believe,” Rep. Capps said. “The majority of women support this.”

Even with health insurance, contraception costs American women between $600 and $1,200 every year. While many women struggle to afford this basic health care, their husbands, fathers and brothers often have access to drugs like Viagra with no co-pay whatsoever. Full coverage for birth control and other women’s health services in the PPACA will finally bring an end to the “longstanding gender discrimination in prescription drug coverage,” said Rep. DeLauro. “Women’s health will finally be put on equal footing.”

The recent Susan G. Komen foundation fiasco showed the nation that women don’t want politics getting in the way of health care. Ultimately, the convictions of some religious leaders should not be allowed to trump the rights of millions of women employees to have access to birth control. Or, as Rep. Schakowsky put it, “Your health care benefits shouldn’t depend on who your boss is.”

Bingo, Rep Schakowsky. Also, your benefits shouldn’t depend on whether or not the U.S. Congress is being held hostage by a gang of sniveling socon assmufflers who want to dictate what literally 51% of the nation do with their bodies, but would howl like banshees if someone tried to take away their dick pills subsidy (from their cold, dead hands!)

Last word goes to Jessica Valenti:

Griswold: it’s what’s for dinner.

Lucky Duckies May Get Their Wings Clipped By Top Hat GOP Congress

matttbastard — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:02:19 PST

Simon Johnson on the vindictive absurdity of Republican plans to slash unemployment benefits:

The jobs crisis was caused by recklessness in the financial sector, made possible by irresponsible deregulation (including a period when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House) and resulting in enormous unconditional bailout protection for the bankers at the heart of the disaster (under both President George W. Bush and President Obama).

Let’s be generous for a moment and simply state that mistakes were made — on an enormous, macroeconomic scale with gut-wrenching consequences for families around the country. Why would anyone now seek to punish these people when they seek work but cannot get it?

In some parts of the Midwest, there are roughly four unemployed people for every job vacancy; the numbers are similar in many other parts of the country. Simply telling people to move is also not helpful — where exactly do you see hiring on a scale that would put a dent in these overall numbers?

Extended unemployment benefits provide on average about $300 a week — one-third of the average weekly wage and only about 70 percent of the poverty level for a family of four. If you strip even this money from people who remain out of work through no fault of their own, you will push more individuals and families onto the streets and into shelters. The cost of providing those fallback services is very high — and much higher than providing unemployment benefits.

How does it help any economic recovery when the people who lose jobs cannot even afford to buy basic goods and services — enough to keep their family afloat?

As they say, read the whole damn thing. Such questions may not concern some, but it should.

Links for 2010-09-26 [Digg]

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00:00 PDT

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