Cleek mentioned that the beer that Dakota Meyer and President Obama shared yesterday was brewed at the White House. Here’s a lot more detail on how that beer came to be, from a blog completely devoted to the food and food policy at the White House. Consider this an open thread and a beer thread.
Archives for September 2011
One of Life’s Mysteries
Reading about the really awful crash at the Reno air show, I don’t understand why people attend these events. If you’re far enough away from the action to be “safe”, you’re too far to see much, and if you’re close enough to see what’s going on, then you’re too close. I’m sure I’m overestimating the chance of death and dismemberment, but clearly it’s a bit more than nil.
Late Night Open Thread
Just made it back from the casino. Up a couple hundred on blackjack (actually saw some jackass split 10’s twice and managed to not punch him in the neck), and everyone had a good time.
Late night song of the week
Ray Charles, “Mess Around” (1953)
Crazy week here, hard drive meltdowns, computer to the indifferent shop, and offline for two long days. I realized, for better or worse, that online is basically where I live nowadays so I really felt lost there for awhile. But I can always put on something from The Birth of Soul and feel something like I have approximated coming home again. Maybe it’s like that for you too? Don’t miss the iconic moment here when Ray Charles drives the wedge of silence between the words “pit” and “barbecue” in the first line, and somehow launches the whole thing to high levels of excitement.
One more: “It Should’ve Been Me”
More stuff at Can’t Explain.
Open Thread: More Re-Framing
(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
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Since I worried about this on an earlier post, props to Dave Weigel for following up, and applause to Rep. Kathy Hochul, winner:
All week, I’ve been wondering if the Democratic loss in NY-9 proved that Democrats were losing entitlements as a wedge issue… Why not [ask] Kathy Hochul, the Democrat who won NY-26 largely by clobbering her Republican opponent on the Ryan plan? I asked Hochul about this after a vote this week. Her spin:
“We need to cut the underlying costs of health care, which are making Medicare more expensive. Democrats are in agreement — we talk about this all the time. We have to make sure that we get equity with respect to prescription drugs — the drug prices under Medicare are obscenely high. Why are veterans at VA hospitals paying less for prescription drugs than people who are under Medicare Part D? That’s an area we should go after. Medicare fraud is getting out of control — just look at all the prosecutions on Medicare fraud. I think we should have Medicare cover home health care. Look at the savings we’d have if we covered home health care and tele-health services. Instead, people in rural areas have to go hospitals at the dead of the night. If we look at this holistically, we can cut the underlying costs.”
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That’s how Democrats can win? “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t want the Medicare beneficiares touched. They can’t afford to have $7000 out of their pockets, as was proposed in the Ryan budget.”
Consider this an Open Thread, because I said so.
Pushing back on Conservative “Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme” Framing
“Do you believe seniors living in gutters is the future of ‘social security’?”
Nicholas Wilbur at Muddy Politics identifies an area in which liberals can push back on the right’s attempt to cast social security as a Ponzi scheme, a scam, or some irrefutably broken system:
This may be the new reality in a politically polarized America, but for liberals who are expected to elevate political issues beyond the talking points and frameworks of Republican demagogues, they failed miserably – and I believe they will continue to fail for three reasons: First, because all ideologues are hard-headed, and the current “base” of the Republican Party is full of ideologues; secondly, because facts that don’t align with a party’s agenda aren’t facts at all; and lastly, because it takes only one liberal to admit publicly that there are similarities between a Ponzi scheme and Social Security, and when that liberal concedes, as Matthews did, it opens a small but fatal chink in the Left’s armor that conservatives will exploit until everyone knows that “Liberals agree,” in this case, “that it’s a Ponzi scheme.”
The Left missed the point – and a great opportunity to actually elevate the debate.
Comparing Social Security to a Ponzi scheme, even if the comparison is intended to show how Social Security isn’t a Ponzi scheme, is still comparing Social Security to a fraudulent scam. It relies on a Republican framework – Perry’s framework – and it criminalizes Social Security from the start.
Who cares what Perry thinks?
Pushing back on Conservative “Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme” FramingPost + Comments (50)
Friday Night Open Thread
What kind of mayhem are we getting into tonight?
If one of you reprobates so much as mentions Michael Moore in this thread so help me I will not only ban you, but I will track you down, give you a gypsy beat-down ala Snatch, then rub tuna all over you, tie you to the ground and let Tunch finish you off like Brick Top’s pigs.