New Places To Look

Cross-Posted At American Street

The information superhighway has re-opened one of my favorite rest stops. I'm sure you'll be as happy as I am that The Editors and Sifu Tweety are again conducting seminars at The Poor Man Institute. (H.T.: Avedon, Mistress of all good linky stuff.)

The token liberal at Faux Noise, Alan Colmes has a blog -- and in this episode we get a different take on the Pantload than seen by our beloved Blogtopians who've been eviscerating the guy who put the "moron" in Oxymoron. Alan shares his hate mail from Holocaust deniers and other assorted freaks after his interview with the author of Liberal Fascism. It's a hoot. Like reading Free Republic with a narrator.

At Open Left, David Sirota uses the analogy of Indiana Jones exclaiming, "They're digging in the wrong place," to describe how Americans longing for change won't find it in our federal institutions, national corporate media or presidential election contests. But there's hope, and one of them is David's own, brand new nationally syndicated newspaper column.

Speaking of the "laboratories of democracy" found in our 50 State Capitals, Sirota points those of us (most Americans by a 2 to 1 margin) who want real universal health care guaranteed by the government to our state legislatures as the most promising place to get things done in this area.

In a move making health care lobbyists quiver, Washington state Sen. Karen Keiser (D), chairwoman of her legislature's powerful health committee, this week introduced the nation's most far-reaching universal health care proposal. Her legislation is the American West's version of a parallel Wisconsin initiative, and the replication suggests this model may begin building the universal health care system our country wants.

The plan is simple: Employers and employees pay a modest payroll tax in exchange for full medical benefits, with no premiums. Patients never lose coverage and pick the doctors they prefer. And for the spendthrifts, here's the best part: According to an analysis of the Wisconsin proposal by the nonpartisan Lewin Group, the plan would save middle-class families an annual average of $750 on their existing health care bills. In all, the state would save almost $14 billion over the next decade.

All politics is local folks. The conservative movement that's nearly destroyed this country wasn't brought into existence by a sweep of Ronald Reagan's magic wand (no matter what Barack Obama thinks). By concentrating on local elections for school board, city councils, county commissioners and up through the state legislatures, the GOP could count on a deep bench of greedy little psychopaths bending over backwards to do the bidding of their financiers on K-Street until they were deemed completely devoid of moral turpitude and loyal enough to jump through any hoop Tom DeLay, Inc. told them to.

We can build an Army of Davids that will send Professor Instalinker into spasms the same way. (Without the greed, trickle-on-you economic snake-oil, and irresponsible societal attitude of course.)

Finally, a place I've been hanging around at for a few years since being banned from Dean's World for having an opinion, Dean's (soon to be ex-) wife, Rosemary Esmay -- The Queen of All Evil -- a former Bush apologist who now is voting for Hillary has exposed Mike Huckabee's sodomite fantasies. No really. After reading this, you won't want to touch the Huckster with a ten foot pole.

Got any fun new way stations on the intertubez you'd like to share?