I sent an email to Eric Massa some time back, thanking him for voting against HR 3962, and specified that I didn't need a reply, as I'm not one of his constituents. I got a 'form letter' response anyway, and thought I would share it.

Dear [hipparchia]:

Because you have previously been in touch about health issues, I am writing to let you know why I voted "no" on the 2009 major health care reform bill (H.R. 3962). Being accountable to you for my actions, perhaps you will forgive a detailed response.

Cue the wanking:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is open to having coffee with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, whose new book about the 2008 presidential campaign is stirring controversy.

“I absolutely would look forward to having coffee,” Clinton said from Singapore Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Results here. TABOR went down to defeat; Yay! Now ME won't slide into the Atlantic, like CA into the Pacific, by subjecting every tax to a referendum. And medical marijuana is legalized; Yay! And the state actually rejected cutting the excise tax on automobiles. That's really three black eyes for the right. (The other question was about rolling back an undemocratic and painful school consolidation program imposed by the governor; voters, I think, decided that it would be even more painful to undo what had been done.)

Take a look at this photo. It's not begging for a caption. That smirk on a face non-Texans might not recognize belongs to David Medina. The one y'all might have seen before, over to the right, is Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry. Back in 2004, when Perry refused despite receiving expert reports and evidence that Cameron Todd Willingham's conviction for arson didn't withstand a second look, never mind real legal scrutiny, Medina was General Counsel for the Governor's Office. It's entirely possible Medina and Perry sent an innocent man to death in Huntsville. A few years later Medina's house burned, and both he and his wife were indicted for arson; at trial they benefitted from the same kind of experts whose work Perry didn't consider when Willingham's life was at stake.

Great coverage of this continues at Northstar's place, at Dog Canyon, and at Burnt Orange Report.

I don't know

Harsh, but true:

People don't go to demonstrations or marches to be talked to death, they don't go to be harangued, they don't go to listen—God forbid—to poetry. They show up because they want to do something, they want to do something themselves, they want to take symbolic action. Part of what made ACT-UP so successful back before it was overrun by the same sorts of fuckwits and yahoos who ran yesterday's rally and march was that ACT-UP didn't waste your time. There weren't many speeches at ACT-UP actions—they were called "actions" for a reason—and certainly no poetry. If someone spoke, they said, "This is why we're here, this is fucking unacceptable, and here's what we're going to do about it." Then the ACT-UPers shut down the FDA, put a condom over Jesse Helms' house, throw peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the governor of Wisconsin, etc.

"People who took the time to show up at an ACT-UP actions were presumed to be on the right side of the issue and therefore not in need of indoctrination. If someone wanted to listen to speeches—or make them—he or she was welcome to come to long, weekly process meetings, where positions were hashed out and actions were proposed and discussed, shot down or endorsed. But when it came to the actions themselves people felt it was important not to waste the time of the people who showed up. Because if you did, if you alienated people by wasting their time (and lots folks were at ACT-UP actions were dying and so didn't have any time to waste), they were unlikely to turn up at the future actions."

The same critique is true for blogs. It's all well and good to provide commentary and analysis, but gosh it would be nice if more posts in the blogosphere were followed up with 'click this link and find out what you can do about it.' Sending an email or making a phone call barely count, in this respect. Sending a check, going on a Volunteer Vacation, and/or knocking on doors while there's still time, does.

Via KnoxViews ("Ideas so crazy they might work"):

So there's this guy in Florida running for the Democratic nomination for governor. He has a plan to eliminate property taxes, create a million new jobs, provide free health insurance and free college for all residents, and lots more.
His plan hinges around a proposal to create the Bank of the State of Florida, which will pay 6% for CDs and make mortgage loans at 2% and other loans including small business loans at 3% and make billions for the state. How is this possible, you ask? Using "fractional reserve banking" just like every other bank, except using the profits for the public good.

Grayson's from Florida, right? Somebody should ask him what he thinks about this.

From the Chicago Tribune (with pictures of the chilldren who died in the fire, the house and stills from the investigation video, as well as of Willingham): As far back as 2004, Rick Perry -- who's now become the target of ABC News and maybe CNN's Anderson Cooper too -- refused to consider the possibility, despite scientific evidence, that he'd ordered an execution for an innocent man to go forward. Two days before a state panel on forensic science was to hear further information -- and start work on a report the final version of which would've come out just about in time to torpedo Goodhair's primary campaign against KBH -- the Governor replaced three members of that panel, including the chair, with political cronies. Guess what?

[Cross-posted to OpenLeft. Feel free to add comments over there, too. --lambert]

The blogosphere is all atwitter over Alan Grayson's powerful rhetoric on health care insurance reform -- and don't get me wrong, I'm all for effective rhetoric.* Grayson said:

44,789 Americans die every year according to the Harvard study. and you can see it by going to our website at grayson.house.gov. That is 10 times more than the number of Americans who have died in Iraq and who died in 9/11. but that was just once. this is every single year. That's right. every single year.

Take a look at this. Read it and weep. And I mean that, read it and weep, because of all these Americans who are dying because they don't have health insurance. Now, I think we should do something about that and the democratic health care plan does do something about that. It makes health care affordable for those who can't afford insurance and it saves these peoples' lives.

Leave aside the fact that co-authors of Harvard study Grayson cites are single payer advocates; we're used to the public option crowd stealing the good stuff. The more the merrier!

What really gets me is that Grayson's wrong on one very obvious and important fact:

[Do read the comments. --lambert]