Since this summer camp thing was a spur-of-the-moment thing, the Camp Director hasn’t really thought out the activities for the day. Swimming? Thanks, but actually we’re drowning in debt. Staying out of the rising water seems like a better plan. Hiking? Lovely day for it. Does anyone have any idea where we’re headed? Horseback riding? Gosh – all I can see out there are horses’ rear ends.

So what’s say we indulge in a couple of my favorite pastimes – political gossip and speculation. Sound like fun?

I’ll start with some inside baseball from Big Sky Country. Whispers on the street have it that our Republican (yeah, right!) Lt. Governor will be retiring soon, so that state senator Dave Wanzenried (D-Missoula) can step in to get a leg up on the Gov’s seat in 2012. The news here is not so much that Bohlinger may be exiting stage left, but that Wanzenried would be the designated replacement. Not that Dave doesn’t have gubernatorial aspirations, but – jeeze, pleeze. They have to have more bench strength than that!!

Along a similar vein, announced Dem candidate Dennis McDonald who is challenging Montana’s lone republican Congressman, Denny Rehberg, seems to be floundering in a sea of antipathy verging on hostility. Evidently the funds haven’t been pouring in to the former Democrat Party Chairman’s coffers the way they need to be to wrest the one remaining statewide conservative seat. Not really surprising, since the California transplant is pretty much regarded as “all hat, no cattle” around the state. So the big boys in the back room are puffing away and blowing a bunch of smoke up the skirt of Whitney Williams – daughter of former Congressman Pat Williams and State Senator and Majority Leader, Carol Williams. The Williams family are huge Hillary supporters, by the way, and although they couldn’t swing the state for Clinton in the primary, I suspect there’s more than one favor to be called in. Whitney has an impressive resume to go with her family background and could be a formidable candidate, but for one teeeney-weeney little thingy: She left Montana years ago and hasn’t been back except to check in with Mumsy and Daddikins from time to time and do some post grad work at UofM. Obviously, Montanans aren’t exactly offended by a non-resident representative in DC (Max Baucus hasn’t lived in the state since he was first elected in 1978!), but it might be a bit harder to justify importing a community organizer from Seattle just to run against a guy who still regards Washington as the place where he works and Montana is where he lives. We like that kind of thinking here. But the speculation is a ton of fun.

On the national scene, HillBuzz favorite and Hillary replacement Kirsten Gillibrand is likely to have a challenger in Carolyn Maloney, the long-time Congresswoman who is known in these parts as one of the strongest and most out-spoken anti-gun advocates in the House. She couldn’t get elected dog catcher around here, but is apparently a serious threat in NY. HillBuzzers may have to do a little campaigning for Ms. Gillibrand.

Ok – my lunch break is about over – so now I’m turning this over to you guys. What’s going on in your corners of the country? Who’s in? Who’s out? Who cares? Share!!!

For those of you who stop by regularly, I thought you should know that I’ve offered this site as a temporary location for my friends from Hillbuzz. The Boyz have been away for a while and things keep happening that the Buzzers want to talk about. So I’ve offered this site as a vacation home for TXMom, FLMom, BlueStateBilly, NeeNee, lynn, girlpower, skating on glue, garlicnosedho, PVG, Delle, Tammy, and all the rest of the gang. They’re great people and I hope they – and you – take advantage of this opportunity to meet a few more cyberfriends from all over the country.

I’ve changed the settings here, so that after you post your first comment, subsequent comments will be automatically posted without administrative approval.

Enjoy! And welcome everybody!

When does the fat lady sing????

Too bizarre on too many levels.

We don’t know Jack.

So how do you think the first-ever presidential informercial is going to do in the ratings? TOTUS has some very high standards to reach. The One is playing in the big leagues now – right up there with Billy Mays and Vince “ShamWOW” Whathisname. Can he do it? Can this political wunderkind compete against the other networks and the zillions of cable channels for a big enough share of the viewing audience to keep the advertisers happy? The president is taking a real risk here. After all – June, 2009 is not the height of the campaign season. That sitcom’s over.

ABC and the White House will provide the prime time platform and background for a potential wow-a-minute opportunity to literally dazzle hundreds of Americans who can’t possibly find anything else to do on a beautiful summer evening than to park their sorry butts in front of the television set and watch a one-sided, fully scripted, hyper-hyped version of campaign promise re-runs. Boy, I can’t think of anything that could possibly be more fun or interesting. That’s just me though.

Jeff Schreiber at America’s Right suggests the potential for the President’s big show to bomb is right up there since the whole thing is pretty obviously an attempt to salvage a sinking agenda:

The backlash is here. This is a completely defensive move by a White House increasingly found on its heels. Obama’s recent health care speech in Wisconsin was similarly defensive, not to mention embarrassing. See, this president is a man who has never, ever been truly opposed in anything he has ever done. He skated into Illinois public office by getting his rivals tossed from the ballot, and he skated into the White House not because of his policies but because of his empty rhetoric, combined with a disillusioned, war-weary, Bush-lashed American public and a politically inept Republican on the other end of the ballot.

But, just like a pitcher who has thrown seven no-hit innings only to have a frozen-rope double slapped into left-center may struggle through the next few batters to come, Obama is seeing adversity–true, ideological adversity–for the first time in his life. As a result, the White House organizes a cheesy, Obot-packed town hall-style meeting in Wisconsin, and then asks a slobbering Charlie Gibson to quit dry-humping the presidential leg and invites him and his organization to the White House.

It’ll be real interesting to see how this show goes. Picked up for the season – or cancelled after the pilot?

The kerfluffle over the mean, tasteless, and disgusting attacks on Sarah Palin and her daughters by David Letterman hasn’t gone away the way such things usually do. And that’s a good thing. Over the past several years, certain groups have yelled long and hard enough that they are rarely the targets of gratuitous hate speech in public. White women, conservatives, and Christians still seem to be fair targets to some. Sarah Palin – who happens to be all three – has been a favorite of the Left as a person about whom the most vile and inaccurate statements can be made with little or no consequence.

Until now.

Finally, the public is reaching the point where enough is enough. Calls for boycotts against CBS, the Letterman Show, and the show’s sponsors are going viral on internet sites, blogs, and emails. And they don’t seem to be diminishing. Today’s offerings are taking things to new levels of creativity. Best of all – those who are offended by Letterman’s pathetic attempt at humor are turning his genre against him and his supporters. I share these with you:

This is just the beginning. The floodgates are open. There will be more. And maybe enough smart people will finally get the point that tacky doesn’t sell.

H/T HillBuzz

I really wanted to start posting about the healthcare issue and the various plans that are now bubbling to the surface. I fully expected to create some sort of boiled-down comparison of the good, bad, and the ugly about: “universal healthcare” – which seems to be synonymous with “free healthcare for all”; “single-payer healthcare” – which is evolving into “you choose your healthcare plan, doctor, etc., and the government will pay the bills instead of all those nasty insurance companies”, and; “public-option” – which apparently is some form of “you can choose between the government program or a private program, but either way you will be required by law to have insurance”.

Intentions being what they are, I spent several hours over the weekend researching and came to the conclusion that there’s no way I can explain the different proposals. Which is mostly because – other than the simplistic explanations offered above – the plans are so nebulous and theoretical there is no “there” to compare.

But I do have a few observations/questions/comments that I’ll share, that can hopefully start a dialogue here.

1.) Re: Coverage: Is the plan going to cover citizens, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, tourists? Will it cover doctor’s visits, hospital, emergency services (including ambulances and LifeFlight), dental, vision, prescriptions, rehab, medical equipment, nursing homecare? Any co-pays or deductibles?

2.) Re: Cost: As far as I can tell, there is no way in hell that any of the possible cost ramifications can be addressed until the coverage issued are nailed down. So all the estimates out there are no more than silly guesses for the sole purpose of furthering an agenda. But I’ll bet you any amount of money that the actual costs will be far in excess of even the highest guesstimates – that’s just stark-raving reality. Look at the numbers for Medicare and Medicaid. Remember how we were told that there would be “cost savings” from those programs?????

3.) Re: Consequences: Here’s another black hole. For example, with universal or single-payor plans – if you eliminate all the insurance companies – what happens to all those hundreds of thousands of now-unemployed people who aren’t paying taxes or premiums, but must be covered – are you considering the additional impacts to those systems just from that one industry? Now throw in all the folks who have lost jobs in the last six months even – have the authors of the plans included those additional expenses to the forecasted numbers? What happens when the unemployment numbers reach 10 – 12%???? Pardon me if I can’t quite figure out the impacts of these scenarios. And what about horrendous disasters??? Are the proponents prepared to fold that into the mix?

4.) Re: Politics: For instance, Baucus (on behalf of his buddies in the insurance industry – Way to Go, Max!) says single-payer is “off the table” in direct opposition to the administration’s plans. Throw in the Blue Dog Democrats and the kerfluffle gets going before the R’s weigh in. As this debate gets hotter, the politics of the thing will get nastier and nastier and honest accurate information that should be at the basis of any informed decision will be tossed farther under the bus than Rev. Wright.

It is likely that some form of healthcare bill will be debated in Congress this summer. I wonder, though, if in the end, it will be more sound and fury than substance? And possibly, the whole thing could get tabled “because of the economy stupid”. Washington frequently works that way.

And for that we are grateful.

What say you?

‘Nuff said.

50 years ago today my father died. He was only 39 years old. We were on our way home from vacation and had stopped in Denver to see my grandmother. He wasn’t an important person, by anyone’s standards, and I’m one of probably only two people left in the world who even knew him.

I just have a few memories left. I remember so clearly the ambulance crew pushing the stretcher past Nana’s dining room table and he looked over at me and told me not to be scared, I’d be okay. He probably knew he wouldn’t be. I think I remember being told that he had died, but I don’t remember how we got back from Denver to Helena. To this day, I have no recollection of the funeral either, but several years later I was able to go to the cemetery and walk right up to his gravesite, even though I hadn’t been there since the day he was buried.

For many years I idolized my father. He was the “good guy”; Mom was the “bad parent”. She got all the blame; he got all the credit. At some point I grew up and realized that – like all the rest of us – he probably had his good points as well as his faults. It doesn’t matter now one way or the other, but I wish I could thank him for a gift I know he gave me that has stayed with me for all these years – a love of reading for pure enjoyment and entertainment. Give me a book over a movie any day!

I don’t remember exactly what his job was – he worked for the State of Montana in the Mitchell Building. (I think I remember that because of the white buffalo was displayed in the front lobby until the museum was built.) His job involved a little bit of travel and when he came home he would bring me a book. I vividly recall curling up in the living room with the newest “Cherry Ames” mystery and reading clear through ’til bedtime. I LOVED those books!

I still love character-based series: Susan Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone, Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp. Alex Cross, Alex Deleware, Ben Kinkaid, Peter Decker, JP Beaumont, Butch Karp, and a whole host of other fictional characters have become the same kind of friends that Dad first introduced me to. Many times during my life, when I was uprooted from one place and moved to another, I always knew where I could find a familiar friend.

I’m sure he had more influence on who I am than I will ever realize, but my world has always been a much bigger and more interesting place because of the books I have read and for that I owe much to my father.

So today, I just want to let him know I remember and I appreciate what he did for me. And he was right – I was okay without him. But I missed him. And I still do. Some things never change.

Love you Dad!

A serious lack of experience shouldn’t disqualify a guy from getting a job. He’s smart. He’ll be able to figure it out.

How’s that working out for you?