Happy Tax Day

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It's tax day. Many protests are planned. Us - we're getting a refund for the first time since we had a dependent minor. That's more than a decade. Let's see what might have changed. Income - about the same. Maybe a teeny bit higher, but basically the same. Our deduction situation - exactly the same. So what could be different about 2009? Well, Barack Obama became president in 2009. Passed some tax relief for the middle class. I guess that must be the difference. Gee whiz, where can I go to protest that? On the way to the hospital, that is.

Thank you Bob Cesca, thank you John Cole

First I saw this by Bob Cesca which linked to this by John Cole. All I want to say is, yeah, what they said. And to thank them for saying it.

Birth Certificates

The birthers have been competing with health care for the news cycle this week. There was the nutcase at the townhall meeting in Delaware, Chris Matthews' bravura performance as he insisted on calling a whacko a whacko, and the shameful performance by Lou Dobbs in fueling this conspiracy theory. A lot of these people, including Dobbs, seem to be hanging their argument on the theory that the birth certificate that the President has produced and posted is somehow a short form and incomplete. The crazy lady in Delaware listed a whole bunch of things that are on hers that don't appear on Obama's including the hospital where she was born and the doctor's name. Lou Dobbs referred to a "long form" document. 

With all this noise I decided to have a look at what we have around the house in the way of birth cerficates. I don't have mine. I had an official copy with raised seal but had to provide it to someone for some purpose or other years ago and haven't had a need for it since. Mr. Yenta has his. We were both born in New York State in the same year - 1949. Our copies would never make it with these people. Document reproduction was not very good in those days and both were just barely legible even though they include the raised seal, making them "official". . I do believe that mine listed the hospital. His doesn't. No doctor's names on either of them. I also have my son's. It's the only copy we've ever had and it's what he's used for everything he's ever needed one for. It has less information than the president. It has the date of birth. No time listed. The president's has the time on his. It lists my name and Mr. Yenta's, but makes no mention of our ethnicity. It lists the state New York and town of his birth and is signed by the town official in charge of those things and there's a local regisration number and the seal.  No hospital, no doctor. I'd like to ask Mr. Dobbs if that makes my son "undocumented" as far as he's concerned, because if so, I'd suspect that the same would apply to millions of native born Americans. Or is this only a problem with African-American presidents?
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Hardball WTF Moment of the Day

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There were a lot of them today. It would have been hard to choose which was the most bewildering bit of conversation but then there was THE moment. It was about the presidential press conference, health care reform and the public option. They played a quick clip of Jake Tapper asking Obama what would become of his promise that the insured portion of the American people wouldn’t have to change their plan to a public option if they didn’t want to in the event that the public plan was a good deal and employers decided to switch to it. Yeah, what then? Then they played a small portion of the president’s reply.

"When I say if you have your plan and you like it, ... or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don't have to change plans, what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform," the president said.

At that point, Tweety, Chuck Todd and another head on the screen whose name I don’t recall right now generally agreed that Obama got caught a little on that answer. Actually, the only way Obama got caught short is in that he probably still can’t believe people who get paid huge sums of money to report are asking such stupid, stupid questions. Sure, he should know by now, but it’s still hard to wrap your head around it.

I’d just like to know who these people have been working for for the last couple of decades. When both Mr. Yenta and I had jobs with private, for profit companies we had our health insurance changed almost every year – and rarely for the better from where we sat. The same thing has happened to almost everyone we know, too. When I started working at my present place of employment it was a little different. There were about five plans to choose from. Now there are two. In these instances the insurance companies dropped us. Not enough people on some of the plans to make it worthwhile to insure our aging workforce. Of the two that remain, one of them has been taken over by another company and it’s hard to find specialists that take it. That’s the one I have and I’m not complaining. I’m not even complaining that they declined to cover a medication that was prescribed to me this week. Hasn’t been out long enough to be on their list. The co-pays are low, though, and at least we have insurance. With Mr. Yenta’s medical expenses that’s the most important thing to us. We’ll cope with the rest.

If Jake Tapper, Chris Matthews, Chuck Todd or the other head on the screen think for a moment that most Americans really have choice when it comes to health insurers they need to get in touch with reality. When they’re at a presidential press conference they’re asking questions for all of us. They should ask smarter ones.

 

Barack Obama, International Man of History

Ancient history, that is. I’ve been catching up on Obama’s Cairo speech. Of course, that was a couple of countries ago, already. I don’t know if even President Obama can bring world peace, but at the very least, Americans with the inclination and the funds to travel should be able to stop pretending to be Canadian.

The absolute kicker of it all to me, though, was Obama finding a look-alike on the wall of an ancient Egyptian tomb.

This guy looks enough like Obama to be a caricature at the very least. His name was Kar. Which of course could be short for Barack, backwards. Anderson Cooper and his commenters are impressed, too. I don’t think we should let this go until it’s available as a t-shirt.

Let Me Talk You Down, Rachel, Hilzoy, et al

This is going to be quick because I'm literally on my way out to work. I've asked my lefty lawyer sister about Obama and preventative detention for some of the Gitmo detainees and the issues surrounding it. By the way, I'd put money on her in a constitutional cage match with any lawyer from the Center for Constitutional Rights or just about any other for that matter. She's wicked smart and very good. She also predicted that there would be this problem of tainted evidence against people we might not be able to let go. What she says, just from reading that part of the speech - is that what Obama is talking about is within the Geneva Convention rules. It does not appear to be about any "unprecedented presidential power" as was asserted on the Rachel Maddow show last night. She's going to study the whole thing and tell me more over the weekend, but this is what I've got off the top of her head:

First a military commision designates who is and who isn't a POW. The Bush administration decided to get around all that by making up the designation of "unlawful enemy combatant" and the Obama administraton is now forced to sort that out years later. Then, once designated a POW we can detain the person for the legnth of the conflict. What could pose a political problem for the administration is that POWs are supposed to be held in humane - very humane - conditions. They are not charged with a crime. The principle is that they're being held to keep them off the battlefield. They wouldn't have to go as far as we did during WWII with some Italian POWs held in the NY area. Some of them got furloughs to go visit Little Italy. We probably wouldn't be doing that. But they should properly be kept in better conditions than prisoners who have been convicted of a crime.

It's not pretty, but it's not ad hoc either. There are complications due to the fact that this conflict is of a different nature, of course. For one thing, if you're designated a POW and the conflict is an insurgency, you could be detained for a long, long time. If the previous administration had been interested in the rule of law everything would be in place by now, but it was more interested in getting around the law. That is one of the many huge differences between the Obama and Bush administrations.

We Can Haz Cheezburger

But not without carping from the right, of course!

Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They Shouldn’t Keep An Eye On You

A number of people think that RNC Chairman Michael Steele is displaying signs of paranoia because he thinks that right wing events are being monitored by…someone. I kind of hope he’s right.  I doubt that either Steele or Palin are themselves under surveillance for their views, but I wouldn’t be all that surprised if the Secret Service was  paying some special attention to events that are likely to attract right wing nutbags. That being pretty much the definition of any event that features Sarah Palin there is a chance that someone is taking an interest and that the interest is warranted now that Barack Hussein Obama, or “the Kenyan” as some of them call him, is the President of the United States.

Laughtergate or How a Stupid Question Becomes a Meme

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Did President Obama laugh inappropriately on 60 Minutes? Is he punch drunk? Was his acknowledgement of the absurdity of the legislative options show he’s out of touch. Did he fail to show sufficient populist anger? Do we have so few problems in this country that we can afford to dwell on this assortment of pundit generated idiocy?

No, no, no, no and apparently so. I can understand the rightwing jumping on Obama’s rueful chuckling after Steve Kroft’s “observation”. The rightwingnuts are like Pavlov’s dogs and will salivate on cue if they hear a suggestion that Obama has said or done something they can object to. It’s what they do. But this is now being discussed in newspapers and on cable news shows that aren’t even Fox. The original question suggests that maybe the current 60 Minutes crewhas spent a little too much time asking fairly pedestrian questions in hushed and humorless tones.

As to the rest,  President Obama is as in touch as any politician I’ve ever heard speak and more than most. I don’t expect to like every compromise he decides he has to make, but I have no doubt that he understands the problems of regular people and is concerned about making sure he stays that way while living in the bubble.

While we’re on the subject, during George W. Bush’s presidency, did any interviewer ever ask him, “Excuse me sir, but you seem to be quite clueless on some of these issues. Are you concerned that people will see this and get the impression that you might be an idiot?”, Because I don’t believe I ever heard anyone do that and that would have been a valid question.

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Die Welt liebt Obama

Or The World Loves Obama (according to Google Translate). Sounds about right, though. I have a lot of faith in the man, but judging by this float which appeard in the Rose Monday parade in Duesseldorf, Germany, expectations around the world might just be a little high.

Tags: Obama, Rose Monday, Parade. Float, Duesseldorf, Germany

Watching the President

It's so good to have a president we can stand to watch on TV, let alone look forward to it.

Michelle looks lovely. Justice Ginsberg is there, very much alive. Hillary Clinton is not afraid of color, but hot pink looks good on her. Rahm Emanuel is concealing whatever blunt instrument he's carrying very well.

Lot of pundits are telling us what President Obama has to accomplish tonight. I can predict that if he gave the Gettysburg Address up there, there'd still be plenty of "constructive" criticism from the same people who kept assuming that John McCain won all the debates that the public thought Obama won.

Well, here we go.

UPDATE: Really, really good speech. Even better than I'd hope for. Jindal's response was pretty lame and designed to appeal to no one but other Republican politicians. If he's planning to go up Obama in an election he's going to have to improve his speechifying.

Technorati Tags: President Obama, Politics

The Zen of Obama

see Sarah Palin pictures


Technorati Tags: Obama, Punditkitchen, LOLZ, Poltics