Are You Kidding Me?!!

This was just posted on Huffington Post:

Michael Vick is back in the NFL. Now all he needs is a team to play for. Vick, free after serving 18 months in prison for running a dogfighting ring, was reinstated with conditions by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday. He could participate in regular-season games as early as October.

Are there no standards? I hope they live to regret this. I hope animal lovers everywhere empty any stadium that Vick shows his ugly face in and turns the TV off when any of his games air.

"Thank you God for sending me to Timmy’s house instead of Michael Vick’s"
hat tip to Nathan Griffis

Gates Arrest

I'm not one to call racism but what was the cop doing in Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s home? If he didn't like how Professor Gates was acting all he had to do was back out and leave. And I ask myself how would I react if someone, even a cop, followed me into my home and was unwelcome and wouldn't leave? I've been having disagreement with my homeowers association and I resent everytime they come on my property and although they have power over me they at least (as far as I know)don't carry a gun and taser. I can see Gates' point of view. I cannot see Crowley's. Is his ego so sensitive that he cannot withstand a small elderly man with a hip replacement yelling at him? If so, maybe he needs another line of work where he doesn't have to withstand such 'abuse'.

Andrew Sullivan has a great point of view:

If a cop gives you trouble in your own home after it is perfectly clear that no crime has taken place, you have every right to tell him to get the hell out of your house; and he has no right to hang around. You also have every right to give him your opinion of his police work or his haircut if you so wish.

There is a distinction, in other words, between a deference to cops based on trust and a deference based on fear. I find the idea that mouthing off to a cop in your own home is enough to get you arrested a disturbing feature of the post-9/11 police state. My gut sense of the interaction is that Crowley - used to total deference and fear from those he interacts with - was simply appalled at being harangued so vituperatively, especially by a black man (but race was not the only factor), and quickly realized he had no grounds to arrest Gates in his home, and so lured him outside to get the pretext of "disorderly conduct" in front of seven people. Yes, Skip over-reacted after a long flight and an embarrassing battle with his door; but Crowley - a cop who declared that he was a Republican to the media for no apparent reason - got the man who didn't kowtow to him in cuffs as revenge. The very fact that the charges were dropped tells you who was in the wrong, according to the Cambridge police.

I don't know about you, but I prefer societies in which the exercize of free speech in your own home does not lead to being arrested - especially just to teach you a lesson on how to be deferent to police.

He's Good Enough and I Sure Like Him

Two weeks into his term as Senator, Al Franken wrote, got co-sponsors, and got a bill attached to the Appropriation Bill. WOW!

Here's the other thing, it's to provide help to veterans to get service dogs if they need them.

Puppies and veterans! Who would have the balls to vote NAY on that?!

Congrats Al!!

Birthers are Idiots

Thanks to Jon Stewart for calling it perfectly:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Born Identity
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

I just gave feedback on the CNN site regarding Lou Dobbs relentless legitimizing the Birthers. There's no legal requirement as to what has to be on a birth certificate -- I've seen foot prints, doctor's names, hospital names, names such as "boy" when the parents haven't decided yet on a name, blessings, etc. The certificate of birth is a legitimate and legal document. Obama got his social security number, passport, and other documents with it. Why isn't it good enough for Lou Dobbs? I finished my feedback by saying "WWWCD?" "What would Walter Cronkite do?" and I said Lou was a shameful and poor representative of the legacy of Walter Cronkite.

HELP Came Up with a GREAT Bill

Check out the bill that came out of Ted Kennedy's Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on healthcare:

+ It covers 97% of us for $600B over 10 years.
+ It has a real public option.
+ It charges businesses only $750 per year for every employee not provided coverage. The fee was forecast to generate $52 billion over 10 years, money the government would use to help provide subsidies to those who cannot afford insurance.

The same provision is also estimated to greatly reduce the number of workers whose employers would drop coverage, thus addressing a major concern noted by CBO when it reviewed the earlier proposals.

(h/t to cuteoverload.com)