The Mundane Life of Thunder Jones

Fiscally Responsible Health Care Reform

2009-09-24T11:27:00.002-05:00

The Baucus bill awful. It will explode the national debt and provide poor coverage to Americans while lining the pockets of insurance companies. It cannot be allowed to move forward without serious amending.

I wrote this up and sent it to my representatives in Congress. I would ask that you would do the same.

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[Rep. or Sen. name],

As you certainly know, the new health care proposal by the chair of the Senate finance committee, Sen. Baucus, adds a few new wrinkles to the debate over health care reform. The two most important points coming from this proposal are:

1. An insurance mandate on individuals with subsidies to make it affordable to lower and middle class Americans

2. A removal of a Medicare–style public option

This formula is a give away to insurance companies and most fiscally irresponsible proposal to come out of Congress since Medicare Part-D was passed without the ability to negotiate drug prices.

A mandate on individuals seems like a necessary step in order to bend the cost curve downward and alleviate pressure on emergency rooms as the health care provider of last resort for millions of uninsured Americans, but it cannot and must not be implemented without a government run public option.

The point of a public option is to provide a tool by which health care costs can be driven down through innovation, responsible pay scales, and efficiency. Removing the public option while simultaneously mandating insurance coverage for all Americans (some of which will be subsidized by federal dollars) will create a gigantic new entitlement that will explode the federal budget without any means of controlling costs.

A public options seems to be the requisite tool needed to create universal health care coverage while not devastating our goal of being fiscally responsible and moving towards a balanced budget and paying off our national debt.

Without a public option, any health care reform will be a federal give away to insurance companies because we will have no means of insuring cost control. Please support a public option in any health care legislation.

Please address this specific question in any response.

[Name]
[Address]
[City, State ZIP]
[Phone]
[email]

Breaking Silence to Bewail Torture

2009-08-31T11:05:00.002-05:00

“I knew about the waterboarding, not specifically in any one particular case, but as a general policy that we had approved,” -- Dick Cheney on Fox News this weekend

The guy that was vice president of the United States of America less than 9 months ago just went on television and admitted that he knew that our nation was routinely torturing people.

He needs to now go to jail.

Seriously.

It’s one thing to say that there are extreme moments when torture becomes morally vague. I am as opposed to torture as the next guy, but I cannot guarantee that if I were in some 24-esque situation where I knew that the guy in front of me knew something crucial to saving my wife and child that I wouldn’t waterboard the guy. There are moments where one takes the responsibility for their action into their own hands and does what they view as necessary; it is still tragic, but it is understandable.

The situation that Cheney admitted to publicly this weekend is not that.

We had a system of torturing people in place. Guys would clock into work, torture, clock out, and then go back the next day to do it again. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had water poured over him during waterboarded 183 times. That isn’t a crisis situation, that is a program of torture and the guy that did it and the guys that authorized it ought to be criminally tried. Former-VP Cheney feels so justified in his torture that he is now admitting it publicly and expects to be lauded for his cruelty and vileness.

No one is batting an eye at this ghoulish behavior. What have we become?

Dear Blog...

2009-04-15T10:41:00.002-05:00

Dear Blog,

I think you're dead. I think Facebook and Twitter killed you.

Seriously, I've kind of transitioned from long-winded blog posts to pithy comments on Facebook and Twitter. I don't know if it is a technological movement to newer forms of Web 2.0 or just my life getting too busy to plunk down a chunk of the day to blog.

I may or may not post the occasional entry, so keep me on your RSS readers, but I wouldn't expect frequent blogging from Thunder Jones.

Here's An Idea

2009-03-27T15:37:00.002-05:00

So there is a lot of chit-chat about how in the world the US can fund the initiatives that the Obama administration is pushing. The three priorities that Obama has focused on are:

1. Energy Independence (Green innovation)
2. Education
3. Reforming Health Insurance

Those seem crucial to me and I am thrilled that this is what the President is focusing on. The problem comes with paying for them. At first, he wanted to change the percentage of charitable gifts that could be deducted; this is meeting a lot of resistance. The second idea is a carbon cap-and-trade program that will generate revenue; this one may pass, but is meeting opposition from coal producing states like West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Here's my idea: Create a couple of new tax brackets.

What we have now doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Here's the 2008 schedule:

10%: from $0 to $8,025
15%: from $8,026 to $32,550
25%: from $32,551 to $78,850
28%: from $78,851 to $164,550
33%: from $164,551 to $357,700
35%: $357,701 and above

Why stop at 357,701? Rev it up. Why not roll like this:

10%: from $0 to $8,025
15%: from $8,026 to $32,550
25%: from $32,551 to $78,850
28%: from $78,851 to $164,550
33%: from $164,551 to $357,700
35%: from $357,701 to $2,000,000
37%: from $2,000,000 to $10,000,000
40%: from $10,000,000 to $50,000,000
43%: $50,000,001 and above

Add a couple more levels of progressive taxation in this bad boy. I'm creating a buffer of more than $1.5 million from the current high, but at some point, we have to start taxing more. Someone making $2 million isn't going to trickle down any more of that wealth; if they were, it would certainly happen before the $2 million mark. The logic only gets stronger once we soar above the $2 million landmark.

The median household income is a tick above $48,000. Someone making $2 milliom makes more than 41x the income of the median household. If we're going to get past the recession and make the changes needed to go where we want to go as a nation, we've got to raise some cash. A couple more tax brackets seem like a reasonable way forward to me.

Dr. Manhattan

2009-03-06T07:59:00.002-06:00

HEADS UP! WATCHMEN SPOILERS BELOW!

Instant classic commentary from one of my favorite websites, Topless Robot.

On Dr. Manhattan from a post entitled The 10 Most Annoying Omnipotent Beings:

Alan Moore took the Superman concept -- which had developed over the years through Captain Marvel, Captain Atom and Marvelman/Miracleman -- and took it to its ultimate extreme: what would really happen to a superhero with the powers of a god? Apparently, he'd be kind of a dick, and he'd walk around with his blue schlong hanging out all the time. The latter is clearly because no one can force a man who can re-arrange atoms at will to put on pants. But the former, which usually manifests as a bitchy "I don't care about humanity"? That's just being an ass. Also, despite having access to all the knowledge of the universe, he still wouldn't understand women (notice he takes Laurie to Mars, not Venus, and that's not counting the threesome). Finally, he vaporizes the best character in the book and then wanders off into space to maybe create life, or maybe watch reruns of The Prisoner and smoke a lot of cosmic rope. Either/or.

The Faith of My Ass

2009-03-03T11:27:00.000-06:00

So I'm reading my little Lent book last night and I come across an amazing quote:

"Your faith is rarely where your head is at, and rarely where your heart is at. Your faith is where your ass is."

The quote is from Fr Daniel Berrigan and it seems precisely correct to me. It's easy to have an intellectualized faith or a faith that is sentimental, but a genuine faith is where your ass is at.

Your ass ought to be in service of others during the week and in a pew on Sunday preparing to be nourished so that you can get right back out there. It ought to be out there doing the work we are called to do and not sequestered safely away.

This Lent be authentic. Refuse to have only an intellectualized or sentimentalized faith. Those things are fine, but, alone, they don't compose the faith given to Christians. Doing, not thinking or feeling, ought to be principle exercise of our faith and if it isn't, then fix it.

Unspeakable.

2009-02-23T11:45:00.000-06:00

Soundest sleeper ever?

Hat Tip: Olbermann

Emigrate Me, Scotty!

2009-02-20T11:41:00.003-06:00

It's time to get emigration papers prepared just in case this actually happens.

SEC: The Movie!

2009-02-19T15:29:00.001-06:00

This is a little football geeky, nevertheless, I present a super-fantastico post on which actors would play SEC coaches in SEC: The Movie.

Extra-Douchey

2009-02-14T07:21:00.003-06:00

Okay, I know that the Republicans caucus didn't want the stimulus bill to pass, but threatening to filibuster when the Democrats had 60 votes was extra-douchey.

Why?

First off, the filibuster has become a normal order of business in the Senate these days. It's usage has exploded with a Republican minority leaning on it like Sonny and Cher leaned on I Got You. The real doucheiness happened because they demanded the use of the filibuster requiring Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio to fly home early from HIS MOTHER'S FUNERAL PROCEEDINGS! That's jackassery.

They knew that the bill have the needed votes and pried a man away from his mother's funeral proceedings in a fit of partisanship. If I were Sherrod Brown, I'd get on the TV this weekend and shame the living bejesus out of the Senate Republicans; that or punch some of them in the mouth...

Seriously, if it was my mother, I'd be tempted be lay pacifism aside for an hour or so and scrap a little.

The Gamble

2009-02-11T09:45:00.000-06:00

Here's something really interesting. In Thomas Ricks latest book on the Iraq War, The Gamble, he apparently spends time discussing two foreign born advisors to Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Odierno.

The first adviser is Sadi Othma, a Palestinian American raised in Jordan and educated by pacifist Mennonites. The other is Emma Sky, a British Middle East expert who is an anti-military pacifist as well as a vocally anti-American (policy not people).

Ricks thesis is that the elevation of Petraeus was essentially turning the war in Iraq over to the dissidents within the military. Ricks has done two interviews on NPR this week and I'll post the links below. I believe I'm going to have to run to the library and grab this book.

LA Times piece on Ricks new book

Fresh Air Interview

On Point Interview

Back From The Wilderness

2009-02-09T14:46:00.004-06:00

Hello Blog. It's been a while. Life's been crazy and really isn't much less crazy right now...

But something has pissed me off...

From ABCNews:

The Obama Administration today announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush Administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.

This really, really sucks. This case is about the use of a Boeing subsidiary that is accusing of aiding the CIA in flying the plaintiffs to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured.

Unless we some seriously striking revocations of Bush era policies on torture and the abetting of torture, it appears that the Obama administration is going to continue to argue that "security" is demands that human dignity be overlooked from time to time.

Very, very disappointing.

A New Protestant Denomination is Born

2008-12-04T07:20:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, the Anglican Church in North America was born in Wheaton. It is comprised of disgruntled Anglicans (one of which separated in 1873) who have bailed on The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church in Canada.

I'll say this. There's nothing Anglican about them. You can't splinter from the Anglican province where you live and then say you're the Anglican province. We Anglicans base our churches on geographical location for the province we live in and that province is tied together to the See of Canterbury. What we've got here are folks separating from Anglicanism. They can claim that they are the reform or what-have-you, but that's just not the way we roll. The Episcopal Church managed not to split over the Civil War (!)

I don't doubt that most of the bishops and clergy that have split are doing so because they really feel like what they are doing is right, but so do the Protestants that bail in church splits every week and a half all over America. What we've got here is the triumph of Protestant mentality in some conservative wings of The Episcopal Church and the birth of a new Protestant denomination.

Lord knows that we'll welcome them all back when they realize that Canterbury and the whole of Anglicanism is not down with their schism. I hope that happens someday soon and I hope that the Presiding Bishop acts pastoral, charitable, and, sometimes, in deference to the departed group;I hope that they come back into the fold, but I think it will take a long time before the tempting delusion of schismatic righteousness fades.

Is this how Catholics feel about the SSPX folks?

Secretary of History

2008-11-24T10:33:00.002-06:00

On The Daily Beast, Christopher Buckley suggests a few new cabinet positions. This is my favorite:

Ever since Mr. Bush led us into our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, I’ve thought that what we really ought to have is a Secretary of History.

If there had been one in 2003, when Mr. Bush announced his nation-building intentions in Mesopotamia, the Secretary of History, sitting at the cabinet table would have coughed softly, in the manner of Jeeves.

Yes, Mr. Secretary?

“Well, sir, if I may?”

Go ahead, Mr. Secretary.

“Well, sir, the British tried that back in the 1920’s.”

And?

“It could not be termed an unqualified success, I shouldn’t think, sir. But of course you are the President.”

Secretary Daschle

2008-11-19T15:03:00.003-06:00

Tom Daschle just got named as the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Based on the video below, I think those of us advocating serious reform of access to health care ought to start getting excited.

Boogie Man

2008-11-17T09:49:00.004-06:00

E and I watched a great documentary last night on the late Lee Atwater called Boogie Man.

Lee Atwater is the inventor of the push-poll and the guy that taught an entire generation of Republican operatives, including Mary Matlin, Karl Rove, and Tucker Eskew, how to think and how to win.

The documentary covered Atwater's rise from South Carolina to the campaign manager for Bush in 1988 to his chairmanship of the GOP. For those who don't know Atwater's story, he's the guy that defined dirty tricks. He was a scrapper who would do anything he needed to win. He even tried to smear Clinton in 1990 by running a candidate for governor in Arkansas that brought up his moral failings because he thought that Clinton was the real danger to George H.W. Bush in 1992.

The amazing thing about Atwater is that at the end of his life, which was at age 40 due to a brain tumor, he wrote letters to those whom he had smeared throughout his career (he had often simply lied about his opponents to smear them) as an act of repentance. Atwater wrote in Life Magazine:

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

Throughout the documentary, GOP folks are talking about the genius of Atwater's career and the success that his brilliance brought the party. I'm struck by the sadness taht Atwater had at the end of his life due to his tactics. At the end of the documentary, Mary Matlin talks about how overblown all this "death bed confession" talk about Atwater is, but I don't see how she could say anything else without also proffering the same confession.

This documentary on the life of Atwater is worth a watch.

Top Chef Returns

2008-11-12T11:37:00.003-06:00

I'm not even going to try to play this one cool.

Top Chef is back and I am thrilled. The guest judges! The quickfire challenges! The performance anxiety!

Thrilling.

The Campaign

2008-11-10T15:45:00.002-06:00

Newsweek has done a 50,000 word article on the campaign. I'm sure its really interesting. I haven't found the time to read it. Luckily, my new BFF in the blogosphere, The Daily Beast, has given us all the best parts in a much smaller article.

The Wingnuts Were Right!

2008-11-10T11:55:00.000-06:00

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Wil Wheaton dot Net

2008-11-07T09:37:00.002-06:00

A long time ago, I used to read Wil Wheaton's blog. I stopped, for a reason I don't recall, and recently picked it back up. I'm glad I did because I got these two little gems of wisdom from a story of Wil allowing his step-son to drive with his newly acquired learner's permit:

A few minutes later, as we drove down the freeway, I sat quietly and gently nudged Nolan with driving reminders. He's really quite good, and I didn't have to point out too many things to him, but on one ramp, one of those spiffy milk carton-looking Scions sped up and cut in front of us without using a turn indicator.

"You've got to watch for drivers like that," I said, "and remember my fundamental rule of driving, which is . . .? "

Nolan scrunched up his face like he was thinking, and said, "Don't be a dick?"

"That's my fundamental rule for life," I said. "My fundamental rule for driving is --"

"Oh, everyone on the road is an idiot, and they're actively trying to kill you." He said.

Don't be a dick. Right on.

We Dodged a Bullet

2008-11-06T07:11:00.003-06:00

Sarah Palin might be the worst candidate that I can imagine. She's the epitome of what is frakked up with the GOP; the fact that many in the GOP still love her and think that she's the future of the party show how jacked up this party is.

People root for her because she is "like them" or "shares their worldview". That's simply unacceptable; being "like me" is not a qualification to lead the nation. It's fine to want a candidate that shares your faith or presents an image that is familiar and comforting, but pick someone that is both competent and shares those commonalities.

She didn't know civics
She didn't know all the countries in North America
She didn't know that Africa was a continent
She threw tantrums in the morning

More is going to come out in the future and I hope it sinks any notions of Palin 2012.

Whoot-Whoot!

2008-11-04T20:35:00.000-06:00

So happy.

So, so happy.

Poll Closing Times

2008-11-03T10:46:00.001-06:00

Here's a map of all the poll closing times for those eager to follow at home tomorrow.

I Endorse Chuck

2008-11-03T10:32:00.004-06:00

For those of you looking to fill your DVR with goodness, I'd like to personally endorse NBC's Chuck.

Last week's episode featured music including You've Got the Touch and Tom Sawyer.

The show definitely plays to those of us who revel in our inner geek, but I'm totally cool with it. It's a little stylized, which is fine with me. It also includes a man named Jayne in the cast which is A HUGE PLUS for me.

It's not on this week, so watch a couple of episodes online and get ready for a new episode next Monday.

1/2 Hour Obama Variety Hour

2008-10-30T10:19:00.002-05:00

Well, there was no singing or dancing, but the Obama infomercial was a success. It's getting good reviews by pundits. The best thing I've read was from Talking Points Memo where a reader wrote:

"Obama can go on TV for 30 minutes and not mention John McCain even once. No way would the reverse be true."

The entire thing was upbeat and talked about what he hopes to do rather than focusing on what a jerkbag his opponent is and that was the right tactic. I read another pundit, I don't remember where, stating that this was the capstone on one of the most focused and well run campaigns in American history. Obama had a platform that he started with in Iowa and he's still on the same platform. The infomercial last night was not surprising, but was a stylized presentation of the Obama platform.

Compare Obama's campaign to McCain's campaign; McCain's campaign is always surprising the pundits because it is unpredictable, largely because it is chaotic. The New York Times magazine piece this weekend chronicled from the inside how the campaign keeps switching messages looking for something that will work. Clinton did the same thing and you have to wonder if it is because the candidates are unfocused or if Obama's message is so centered and timely that they just can't compete with it on a national scale.

In case you missed the 1/2 Hour Obama Variety Hour, here it is courtesy of YouTube: