Some thoughts on politics

I'll scrunch all these thoughts into one post.

On the issue of health care: the Democratic party really needs to pass a bill: at the moment, the only option seems to me to be that the house pass the senate bill, together with some understanding, written or not, that the house and senate will both pass improvements via reconciliation (improving those parts that can be improved that way).  At least this way we can ban discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, get a good number more people covered, and make a bit of progress.  If we throw everything away, we lose a lot.

On corporate personhood: what a ridiculous notion: and now there is the idea that corporations --- as pseudo-persons, through a right to freedom of speech --- should be allowed to spend as much as they can to influence elections?  Two points here:  first, that the threat of spending is the real worry: not that corporations will actually spend, but that their threats to do so will have a really chilling, and untraceable, effect on legislators.   Second, the country has made a decision that we don't allow non-citizens to vote in our elections.  And yet we're going to allow corporations, international or not, to buy our elections?  Let's at the very least insist on a modest proposal: any company seeking to avail itself of its new-found political influence should be required to prove that it is 100% US owned.

Finally, yet another Republican voices his opinion: this time it is SC Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer.  He has said that his grandmother taught him not feed strays as it only encourages them to breed: he said this in the context of aid to the poor being a bad thing.  My response?  Don't vote for Republicans: it just encourages them to breed.  If they are out of office, they might well have more time to breed, but they will have lost the ultimate aphrodisiac, as Kissenger described it.

Yours, venting,
N.