Monday November 13th, 2006
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Monday, November 13th, 2006
New Democratic Majority Says: Get the Troops Out
A no-brainer, of course, as the war in Iraq was the single biggest issue for voters last week, other than corruption in the houses. The democratic leadership is looking to start interviews with the major players in the war, such as Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, the heads of the intelligence agencies, and so forth. And then they want to start phased redeployments, which is all well and good. Of course Bush et. al. still say that pulling out will cause chaos, though their position on it seems a little skewed-- the White House is acting as if it gets to make the final decision, when that's the right of Congress alone. Right now it's truly the honeymoon period, as the Democratic leadership can talk about what it's going to do, but can't do anything. Yes. Next January should be interesting, as our once beloved Rule of Law comes back and makes itself felt once again.
Bye Bye Sonics
Last week Seattlers voted against reappropriating funds to subsidize sports teams. And so the owners of the Supersonics have decided to hit the road. Mind you, it won't happen until 2010, so we've got four years to change our minds, or have them changed for us. Remember, this is the town that had voted against dumping money into our other sports arenas, and they went and did it anyway. Really, it all comes down to perceived goodness, as this is very much a fair-weather town. When the athletes are doing well, we wear our shirts and hats, and when they are not, we howl at high salaries and bad traffic. But let's face it-- the people who like sports are not the people living in downtown Seattle. They're living in Renton, in Kent, in Lynwood. Let them pay for a new stadium-- indeed, the Sonics are talking to the suburbs about building a stadium there, though they'll probably-- and I am not making this up-- move to Oklahoma City. And that works for the Sonics, because since 1979, they've been just OK.
The Bare Beginning of Nationalized Healthcare?
Our new Dems want to rescind a law forbidding government from negotiating for lower costs on Medicare drugs. And, I say with no irony or sarcasm, good old-fashioned politics mean the old Republicans are against it. The republicans want to keep things as is, and let free-market competition keep the cost of drugs down. That's all well and good, but money still has to be spent on regulating these companies to keep them from doing an end-run on competition. Which they do all the time-- new drugs, designer drugs, bad research, and the most evil of all, lobbying, see to it that drug prices buoy up and again, driving people to Canada. Democrats point out hey, we're allowed to negotiate on Veteran's drugs, so why not Medicare. And Republicans shoot back, that's because the VA has a formulary. I say, so make a formulary, how hard can it be? Heck, use the VA's formulary.
Lame Ducks Trying to Flap Wings
It's not a Democratic congress yet, and so the lame ducks are going to try and do something in the next two months, and may end up putting more energy into 40 days then they did in the previous 12 years. The Bushinazis want to get illegal wiretapping passed, and John Bolton confirmed, amongst a variety spending bills that where abandoned during pre-election fun and games. This is where the deal-making will come into play, as the already-seated democrats try to clear off as much of the plate as possible to get to their real agendas for next year's term, while exiting Republicans try to make big-money lobbyists happy, as that's where they'll be heading for work when they leave office. Chicanery will be the watch word.
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