Weinergate

Madame L,

Don't you think you owe Andrew Breitbart an apology over the Anthony Weiner scandal? It turns out he was right! The Congressman from New York did send that disgusting photo, and many more.

Sincerely,

You Should Eat Crow

Dear Reader,

Madame L sees no reason to apologize to Andrew Breitbart for anything, any more than she would apologize to Glenn Beck if he ever got anything right.

It's true, though, that Madame L wanted, really wanted, for Rep. Weiner to be innocent of the charges the disgusting Breitbart made against him. It's true too that Madame L is very sorry that Weiner did send that photo, and others, to women other than his beautiful wife.

Madame L does apologize to her readers for being so naive and trusting of one of the few Members of Congress she thought was not a total scumbag. 

With deep regrets,

Madame L

Ryan's Plan for Seniors

Dear Madame L,

I know you don't like Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed 2012 budget, which includes changing the way Medicare is delivered to seniors who are 55 and under.

But your claim that his proposal would "change Medicare as we now know it" seems bogus.

Please explain,

Curious Reader

Dear Curious,

Madame L thanks you for your question. Ryan and his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives all continue to claim that his proposal would not change Medicare, even while saying at the same time, "Not to worry, those of you who are seniors now. It won't change anything for YOU! I would never want to take away the Medicare benefits of some 78-year-old woman. [an actual example given by a Republican Member of Congress]... But for those who will be 65 ten years from now, not so lucky."

Madame L has found an interesting document that explains how Ryan's proposal would make it impossible even for those future seniors to make ends meet:

The Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan accounting office that keeps track of the cost of legislative proposals, has written a letter to Rep. Paul Ryan giving the results of its calculations on how Ryan's proposed budget would "help" seniors in the future.

(Remember that Ryan and the other Republicans in the House are claiming that his plan would "help" seniors in the future by giving them "opportunities" to choose health care plans and providers. Remember than seniors who need medical attention are not really "consumers" of goods, as Ryan et al. want to consider them. They are patients. Also, they're generally without an income....)

Here's the CBO's analysis, from the letter to Rep. Ryan:

Any more questions?

Sincerely,

Madame L

The Sunday Book Review, June 5, 2011: The Circle Cast: The Lost Years of Morgan Le Fay

Dear Readers,

Madame L loved being involved with the Write Hope fundraising effort for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Although Madame L didn't contribute by selling books or services as so many colleagues did, Madame L won her bids on some books.

Today Madame L wants to encourage you, Dear Readers, to read these books:

The Circle Cast: The Lost Years of Morgan Le Fay, by Alex Epstein

and

Mrs. Estronsky and the U.F.O., by Pat Schmatz.

When Madame L has a chance to read the other books from the Write Hope bidding, she'll mention those titles too. Meanwhile, these two books were great reads, well worth the money she spent on them --- and the authors are genuinely nice people, donating the proceeds from the bidding to the Japanese relief effort. 

Mr. Epstein has two blogs: Complications Ensue, The Crafty TV and Screenwriting Blog, and Crafty Screenwriting.

Ms. Schmatz, who also wrote "Mousetraps" and "Circle the Truth," has her own website AND a blog. And here's an interview with her about the book "Mousetraps."

Madame L hopes you will check out the blogs, read the books, and pass them along to your young-adult and independent-reader friends.

Best,

Madame L

The Sucker at the Table

Dear Madame L,

I read in the New York Times the other day: "Wall Street is in on the joke."  It was the executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, R. Bruce Josten, who said, "Wall Street is in on the joke.” 

The "joke" is apparently the game Congress is playing with the U.S. debt ceiling. It looks like the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives forced a vote on the debt ceiling so that they could use the results in campaign speeches leading up to the 2012 elections. It looks like a game of chicken, in fact.

Your thoughts?

A Reader

Dear Reader,

Madame L is not a poker player, but she thinks the following statement applies to the U.S. Congress and the American people, as well as the sucker at the poker table: If you're sitting down to a game of poker, you look around the table, and you can't spot the sucker, the sucker is YOU.

In this case, the sucker is the American people, the dealer is Congress, and the house is Wall Street, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and all those other people who are winning at the table while the rest of us get bilked of our life savings, get told we should be saving for retirement when we are living from paycheck to paycheck, lose our homes that the bank told us we could pay for, and can't find work.

Does Madame L sound bitter? If so, do you, Dear Reader, blame her? Madame L is tired of being played for the sucker. Madame L wants the elected representatives of the American people to behave like responsible adults and take care of the people who voted them into office. Is that too much to ask?

Sincerely,

Madame L

Getting The Poor To Save

Dear Madame L,

I read this headline two days ago: "How can we get the poor to save for retirement?" I practically laughed my head off. What kind of joker would write an article like that? I figured it was some rich guy with a huge retirement fund, some rich guy who only wants to help the poor. 

I thought, if the poor aren't saving for retirement, it's probably because they don't really have enough to live on right now. Isn't that right, Madame L? Isn't that what it means to be poor? Helloooooo!

Sincerely,

Toeing the Poverty Line

Dear Toeing,

Madame L can't help but agree with you. However, she did read the article (and she knows you did, too), and thought it had some good ideas that might actually help the poor. 

Madame L is committed to the idea that as a nation of moral people, which Madame L thinks we mostly are, no matter what religious beliefs or a-religious principles we abide by, we should be committed to taking care of each other. 

Yes, it's true: Madame L believes that the rich and the members of the middle class DO have a responsibility to help the poor. Madame L is tired of hearing rich hypocrites quote Jesus's statement that we'll always have the poor with us (Mark 14:7). Madame L wonders WHY Jesus said that, WHY it's still true today. Madame L thinks it must be because we still haven't learned our responsibility toward our poor brothers and sisters. Madame L knows a lot of people who are right now toeing the poverty line, people who are upstanding, good citizens and hard workers, people who don't deserve to be poor. Madame L suspects that the poor of Jesus's day were poor for the same reasons.

Yet Madame L can't help but agree with you that it would be a more reasonable and worthy goal for now to help the poor to SURVIVE now, before making decisions to "help" them save for retirement.

As always,  thanks to you and Madame L's other readers for your perceptive questions,

Madame L

Who Pays More Taxes?

Dear Madame L,

I see one of your other readers has asked you to research the Cato Institute, and you still haven't done that. So I want to ask you also to do that. I'm asking now because I just read an article saying that someone from the Cato Institute said poor people in the U.S. don't pay taxes. If that's true, then I can understand why the rich people don't want to pay taxes.

Please clarify,

Another Reader

Dear Reader,

Madame L apologizes for not writing about the Cato Institute yet. She will do that when she has more free time. Meanwhile, though, she thinks you might find this information interesting. It's from an article titled "Three Lies About Taxes," from Salon.com:

"In 2007, the poorest Americans -- taxpayers in the bottom fifth of income -- paid 8.8 percent of their income as payroll taxes. The next fifth paid almost ten percent. The top 20 percent of earners paid only 5.7 percent." 

In other words, while rich people are claiming to be burdened because of the high taxes on their income, they are actually paying about two-thirds the amount that poor people are paying in taxes and about half of what people in next bracket up from poverty are paying.

Madame L has noticed that extremists on both ends of the political spectrum love to pick and choose their facts, naturally wanting to use the ones that support their opinions, and unfortunately sometimes making up facts.  Madame L encourages you, as always, to learn as much as you can about issues that are important to you. 

To begin with, if you're interested in taxes and the U.S. budget and fiscal policy, you may want to think about the other two lies, from that article:

Lie Number Two: The U.S. suffers from high taxes. The truth: "The U.S. pays less taxes, as a share of GDP, than Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria, France, Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Switzerland and Japan."

Lie Number Three: U.S. corporations are over-taxed. The truth: "Actually, as measured in terms of share of GDP, the U.S. has the lowest corporate tax burden of any OECD nation."

 Read it and weep, my friend,

Madame L

Say It Ain't So, Anthony!

Dear Madame L,

I'm shocked at the scandal over Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner's supposed lewd photo tweeted to a college student. Have you heard about this?

Sincerely,

Your Favorite Reader

Dear Favorite,

Madame L has also been shocked --- shocked, she says --- shocked at the outrageous and hypocritical audacity of Andrew Breitbart and his pals who appear to have created a hoax so they won't feel so bad about the many conservative politicians caught up in sex scandals recently.

Madame L believes the scandal over Rep. Weiner was concocted by conservative pranksters of the same type lauded by Breitbart before, the kind of people who are willing to destroy a decent and honorable public servant's (USDA official Shirley Sherrod) career and take away funds from a group of conscientious and sincere social workers (ACORN) trying to help poor people. (Full disclosure: Madame L has given donations to ACORN in the past, before Breitbart's lies resulted in its declaring bankruptcy.)

It's no surprise to Madame L that the word "breitbart" is now listed in the Urban Dictionary with the following definition: "To deliberately slander individuals or organizations though the use of selectively edited video released to the news media."

Fortunately for all of us, Daily Kos writer Stef has traced the hoax to its very beginning.  She has found that the underpants photo never did appear on Rep. Weiner's Twitter account. Also, the person who claims to have found the photo there had been blogging/tweeting for weeks before that something was going to be found that would embarrass a Democratic politician. And Madame L is not surprised that Breitbart "discovered" the tweet by this person, @patriotusa76, who specifically tweeted that he was hoping Weiner would be "the next Lee," referring to the married conservative Rep. Christopher Lee, who sent a photo of himself, half-naked, on Craigslist, to a single woman.

Breitbart appeared on CNN with his lies and insinuations, without a shred of proof of anything he alleged; CNN actually had to have their legal counsel appear later to say it was "too bad that he got to say that stuff on CNN" and that he "regretted" that CNN let Breitbart make those outrageous claims.

Madame L is also outraged that Breitbart et al. don't care about smearing an innocent college girl who was one of the tens of thousands of Rep. Weiner's "followers" on Twitter by publishing her name and photo and providing links to her Twitter and Facebook accounts...and then claiming that when she deleted those accounts, she did so at Rep. Weiner's bidding.

Madame L agrees with writer Joan Walsh that the only "lesson" to be learned from this entire episode is that Breitbart is not to be trusted. But we already knew that, didn't we!

Thank you for asking, because your question motivated Madame L to look up the history of the so-called scandal; and make this information available to her readers.

Best wishes,

Madame L