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Showing posts from February, 2010

Keith Olbermann's Lament

At the end of his MSNBC show "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" Keith made a 10 minute closing monologue about his father who is hospitalized with a panoply of ailments. You need to take the time to watch the video to fully grasp the meaning of my comments. I truly feel sorry for the Olbermanns. It is a horrible situation to be in, especially if it lingers. A family member of mine just died tonight after a quick but tortuous bout with lung cancer, and after getting hit with dementia. These sorts of thing occur all too often and are an unfortunate part of life. However, this does not justify Keith to use his grief to bend the meaning of death panels to his own description nor does it justify the way he damns to Hell people who have a different opinion. Without researching exact comments by specific individuals who coined the phrase "Death Panels", my take on the term (as an astute observer of current events) is the suggestion that a body of administrative bureaucrats

Does money buy elections, or politicians?

The recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down a portion of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law which was passed in 2002 was assailed by Pres. Barack Obama in his first State of the Union speech when he said "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections." Let us ignore the comment about a "century of law" as the court overturned seven years of law, although it may seem as if it has been a century since it was passed. And also the part about foreign corporations who have a right to have their US subsidiary interests represented. What I would like to focus on is what role does money really play in elections? Obviously, this post could fill volumes, but really the question is quite simple... What are politicians afraid of? They always claim that money will buy elections, but look at it this way. What good is bu