Consider Yourself Warned....

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If it can happen to a small state [North Dakota] blogger like Chet at northdecoder.com, it can happen anywhere, to anyone….
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Loyal-ties

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Loyalty has been on my mind today, ever since I caught portions of Morning Joe's conversation during the Political Roundtable. Not sure who said it, Joe or Mika or guest Matt Bai or the nonentity from Newsweek, but the consensus seemed to be there is no loyalty anymore...it's cultural these days not just the political quakes we're seeing courtesy the teabaggers and other independents.

No loyalty to party, no loyalty to employees or employers or spouses or....well, you get the idea.

So when I came across this commentary, John Hoeven (Opportunist-ND) for US Senate, at North Dakota's premier political blog, northdecoder.com, I decided to share it with you. Because right now a lot's being said about Governor John Hoeven's inevitability to take the Senate seat long held by Byron Dorgan.

But there's a growing volume of talk about Hoeven's party-hopping, too. Portraying his fealty to loyalty as the political equivalent of corporate values like companies who've gotten all kinds of tax breaks by communities to locate there only to jump borders for cheaper labor, or faux family values like John Edwards or Mark Sanford's concept of loyalty to their wives.

Whaddya think about Chet's posit that Hoeven [and perhaps other minority party novices] would rather switch and be powerful than stay in the far reaches of the minority once reality sets in? And should Democrats accept 'em in the fold? Is there a value to loyalty anymore?
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

One Person's Story

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Lots of sturm und drang about healthcare reform has been flying around Washington and the blogosphere and the media and... well, it truly all comes down to this:

We need reform. Postponing. Delaying. Putting it off until everybody feels all nicey-nicey about what's in the bill just isn't going to cut it. I feel strongly about this. I know lots of my friends and fellow bloggers feel vehemently different.

But it's been six months...and I still remember the haunted faces of caregivers I got to know in Rochester at Mayo's hospital. How they each worried for their loved ones. How they dreaded the financial toll. I can't get that out of my mind. There but for the grace of God, for we had good insurance.

Big numbers get thrown around by the chatterers. Too big to absorb...the cost, the number who die uninsured... but how many live? In quiet desperation at the effort just to survive and the unrelenting anxiety of how to pay for treatments and medicines and meanwhile the vampires take their bites: profiteers whose coin is blood.

And then in the quiet of a stormy Saturday morning, a message on the phone. Call me. And it's a dear friend who needed me to know she hasn't been in touch lately because she has breast cancer. And surgery's next week and then....

One person has a story to tell at Josh's place, too. Please take time—our most precious commodity—to read what he has to say. Because time's a-wasting.

I'm not so cynical as Josh's editor's blog to call his commenter's words a "sob story." Nor my friend, because I know in my heart she will be fine. Nor myself and my own loss last summer and the people who had their own experiences to share along the way.

These aren't sob stories. Nor spin. Nor posturing. Save that for the vampire profiteers and politicians and ghoul media enablers. These are our life stories. And just as hard as we fight, for ourselves, for our loved ones for survival, so, too, we must fight for healthcare reform whatever it takes to get it done.

Because the alternative is death.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

UPDATE: For more on the battle, the marathon, for healthcare reform, read emptywheel's Some Thoughts on Healthcare and digby's suggestion that Someone Tell Tweety

Hope—and Coin—for Haiti

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It's been what Christie would call a craptastic week. Since it's pretty likely the powerlines hereabouts will snap under the weight of ice and wind before the weekend's over, I just ask you to keep one thought, one act in mind:

hopeforhaitinow.org

In Fargo, school kids are gathering up pennies. Dimes or dollars, do what you can. What you will.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

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Ouch.
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Mitch McConnell Came to Town

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Mitch McConnell came to Fargo today to tout the Senate candidacy of current Republican Governor John Hoeven. And I'm sure it's just a coincidence the Valley's been socked in with fog all day....

The way McConnell tells it to the small audience of Republican loyalists captured on video and in print reporting, all we have to do is elect Hoeven and nothing will change because McConnell has the power to put him on the Appropriations Committee and the Energy Committee.

Left unsaid but equally promised were the lollipops and rainbows and cute little puppies....

It was political grandstanding at its finest, just a day after the local newspaper quoted the former Governor and one-time Bush Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer touting how he led Hoeven back into the Republican fold.

Today's article prompted me to comment:

First Ed Schafer brags that he reminded Hoeven he shared Republican values. Then Mitch McConnell brags he can gaur-on-tee what committees Hoeven will be on. What's next? George W. Bush coming to town to tell us Hoeven shares the same banking values as Wall Street and AIG?

Hoeven's proving every day he's in it for the Republicans. Let's get a candidate who represents North Dakota's traditional populist roots. After the mess the Bush people left for the next president to clean up, the last thing we need is to send another Republican to Washington.

Now all we need to find out is which more senior Republicans has McConnell stepped on to make such a promise about committee assignments.

'Cause he sure wouldn't have, you know, blown fog in our faces here out of the limelight in little ol' Fargo, now would he?
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UPDATE: local weather reporting the fog expected to linger all week. Hmmmmm. Mother Nature sending us a message?
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Prairie Recommends: E.J. Dionne

Defying the moment's conventional predictions that we would somehow muddle through, one offered a dire and uncannily accurate forecast. He explained why banks would blow up, investments would crash and the federal government would have to spend "at least $300 billion" to bail out financial institutions.

The other financial expert listened closely, took a sip from his drink, and smiled. "This," he said, "would seem like an excellent time for the Democrats to take power."

It wasn't that he liked Democratic policies. He just wanted the other side in charge when things came tumbling down.

Read it and...