Earlier this week, “Tea Bag Party 2” was kicked-off in Bakersfield, California. The “entertainment” was provided by some right-wing brother in a cowboy get-up. He performed his updated minstrel show in front of an all-white audience, mightily entertained by his caricatures o Obama. It is safe to add that he has little understanding of the dark underbelly of Bakersfield, which consists of such things as the Klan, neo-Nazis and other groups of that ilk. Recent events included the hanging of a Nazi flag on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at a local high school, and the sentencing this past July of a Bakersfield man for the stabbing of a Korean man in a Los Angeles park, while “explaining” to witnesses that his action were a representation of “white power.”

Bakersfield is also the hometown of a girl group called “Prussian Blue,” and the twin sisters who make-up the “musical” act are of naturally of Arian-Nordic extraction, and predictably blond- haired and blue-eyed. Their repertory of race hatred and neo-Nazi fanaticism, accentuated with Nazi salutes and “Sieg Heils.” In 2005, when these twins were 13-years-old, they told a reporter that "We are proud of being white. We want our people to stay white; we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race." “Big” words for girls who were singing this trope since they were nine. It seems that they did not just make this up this up all by themselves, however; their racist mother was their “manager” and “inspiration” for their neo-Nazi songbook.

Meanwhile, Boeing has apparently decided that it will move a second 787 assembly line to South Carolina (where it already builds parts of the plane’s fuselage in North Charleston), after the break-down of the so-called talks with the machinists' union in Washington (no thanks to our weak governor). But it seems likely that these talks were just for show and never serious; Boeing didn’t enter the discussions in good faith, and never intended not to move assembly to South Carolina, a so-called “right to work” state—which means, ironically, that workers have no rights (like having your locker room arbitrarily taken away because someone higher-up the food chain wants it). Proof of this is the “secret” pacts made with Boeing obliquely referred to by Columbia lawmakers before the final decision was made. The number of new jobs that Boeing is expected to create in South Carolina (in order to trigger the handing out of state funds) is more than needed for the second 787 line, so it appears that the company plans on a program of moving additional union jobs from Washington to non-union South Carolina.

A thought on the House’s “final” healthcare reform bill introduced on Thursday. Other than Dennis Kucinich and a few others, almost all Democrats back it; the Republicans can do whatever it is they do when no one is looking. But it does make too many concessions to the insurance industry in that it weakens the public option’s ability to control costs and force real competition. But it’s a “beginning,” and given weak-kneed Democrats, we ought be thankful for whatever we can get.

Pfizer in court again, this time for Wyeth's menopause treatment Prempro
On Monday, a Philadelphia jury, which had earlier found a link between a woman's breast cancer and the hormone-replacement drug she was taking, also found that Wyeth hid and ignored evidence of the drug's potential cancer risk.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/10/27/pfizer-in-court-again-this-time-for-wyeths-menopause-treatment/?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl3|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailyfinance.com%2F2009%2F10%2F27%2Fpfizer-in-court-again-this-time-for-wyeths-menopause-treatment%2F

Europe Is Breaking Up Its Too Big to Fails

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/government-to-break-up-t...

For those who really care, who spend great chunks of their lives staying informed and speaking out for collective progress towards a more sustainable, compassionate and prosperous future for all, yesterdays events concerning health care are disheartening and gray. Many voices are heard to counsel gratitude for what is gained; to see the glass as half full. We are warned of the Democrats propensity for assembling circular firing squads, and fed admonitions about not making the perfect the enemy of the good. We are cajoled with promises about this only being the beginning and how everything humanly possible was done. B.S.

I have not read the near 2000 pages and more than 400,000 words contained in the House's Health care bill. From what I have learned thus far the best thing it has going for it is that it will cover 36 million more people who have no insurance now. It will cover them beginning in 2013! Meanwhile, I guess they need to stay well. I'm not sure about the other 10+ million who are not addressed in this bill. The CBO has rated the cost of this bill to be 1.55 Trillion dollars. It appears that the biggest winners will once again be the insurance industry. The so called Public Option will not only be very weak but also NOT an option for most. We are told that there are strong new measures which will limit gouging by giving insurance commissioners the ability to impose sanctions on insurance companies which unfairly charge too exorbitantly. We'll see.

I am more than skeptical. Count me disgusted by the results. If this is the best we can expect from this Congress, if this all that can be accomplished, then we need a more able crew at the helm. Polling indicates that the majority of the American people were supportive of a much more robust sea change for our health care system. So what is it that tied the hands of our 535 representatives in Washington and made it impossible to reflect not only the will of the people but make the rational and prudent decisions in their constituents best interests? Two things for sure: Ignorance and graft. Not the kind of ignorance determined by intellect but rather the kind that results from indifference, laziness and perfidy. Graft, in all it's forms which has become institutionalized and sanctified by the courts and all other branches of government is the method by which our democracy is destroyed. Graft that flows from corporations and private interests. Graft that has grown so powerful and pervasive that it no longer even needs to hide itself for fear of drawing the ire of the people. The take over of our representative democracy by special interests is nearing it's apex. Our best hopes seemed to reside with the Democrats. They were supposed to be the party for the common people. It now has been shown that even when given control of two branches and a clear super majority to work with, they are too weak and corrupted to be counted on for anything but half measures and pandering for political cover.

The problem with accepting what we can get and being satisfied until more can be done is that history shows that these issues are unlikely to be revisited in our lifetimes. In other words we have been thrown a bone. Meanwhile tens of thousands a year will die because of it and the Corpocracy gains evermore power. The saddest part about this struggle is that no great principals were even advanced or established into popular acceptance by the people. No universal health care. No single payer. No comprehensive reform. No understanding that not everything should be for profit. If more people end up receiving health care because of this legislation I will be grateful. I think it is just as likely that ultimately this legislation will delay and prevent the kind of real and lasting reform needed and result in many more people being neglected for the sake of profit for a few.

I don't think the flag is advanced at all by this outcome. I believe the Democratic Party will be damaged more by this "compromise" than if they had fought hard for a principled bill and failed to pass it. We'll see.

LIBERATRIAN ALERT:

As Rhode Island adopts its planned indoor prostitution ban, only the Great State of Nevada will be civilized enough to allow their prostitutes work inside.

While we are on the point of political-types boinking the public because the sleep with their wives:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/report_bayhs_wife_made...

Please give Evan Bayh a call . . .

DDay,

Oh shoot! I just had a nice response to your wonderful comment and I pressed the wrong key. It's now somewhere out in the ether...(or nowhere, more likely...)

I just wanted to say that I have felt the same way ever since Lieberman raised up on his hind legs and began howling earlier this week.

I feel just as disheartened regarding financial reform.

Quark and DDay

There was a strange noise in my computer room. When I came in to investigate I found a message for DDay from Quark. I don't know how it got there, but I thought it smelled strange so I got closer and passed out. I think it was soaked in ether.

Anyway, the text is kind of smeared from the moisture, but I think I can make out what it says.

DDay,

Stop talking about your attractive wife. What about her brain? What about her character. I thought you were deeper than this.

Your friend,

Doris Day
(no relation to that pig DDay. Don't even think that!)

@Quark: Halloween . . . All Hallow’s Eve is simply the prelude to All Saints’ Day in some parts . . .

Hey Guys,

You all make my heart sing when I thought all I wanted to do was find a nice corner to curl up in! LOL

@DDay: It remains my utterly fervent belief that Bayh was nixed from the potential VeeP list because he is virtually identical in every way to Obama and the Party did not want to confuse folk by running a pair of identical twins for the highest offices in our government.

Oh yeah, the Facebook page: 1,000,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh helped . . .

DDay,

OK, if you must, be a pig. (Just don't become a shark --- or a corporate leech! LOL)

http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/16000/When-Pigs-Fly-16147.jpg

@THOM: Coolness! We can call it the Congress/Corporate NASCAR Law.

Dylan's Channeling Thom Again

Video:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#33551341

BONER!

Progressive Politics... It's a no Boehner

Obama Is Right About Fox News
But the criticism was clumsy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870357460457449967174674351...

@B Roll,

I'm stuck now being dropped enough times on my head before potty training. If I were Quark, I probably would shun you for a few days! LOL Really Dude, are calling me a round head? That was an insult back during the Hundred Years War. In fact, we use it, in fun, around my house to tease each other. How did you guess? :-)

FYI-

Fun Pedantic Factoid: Being called a round head was an insult to some, inspired by the haircuts of one faction during the Hundred Year War. The first "bowl-cut" fad perhaps?

DDay,

http://boxoffice.com/blogs/steve/moe-howard-7.jpg

FYI

That last pedantic post was BS. Round heads was a name for Puritans ,(usually), and was coined around 1641. My male ancestors were mostly Puritans, so I tried to mislead. My puritanical instincts made me correct the record. Darned guilty impulses. I must be a round head. :-)

"Ask Alan Grayson, too?!" This is heaven!

DDay,

I'm in District 41B. Where are you?

DDay,

Like you said, 'Que sera sera." LOL

Well folks

You might as well do it on this page too.