There's no doubt that the higher up the power ladder you get, the more contentious you get. Maybe it feels "wobbly" up there, and too confined for too many. Maybe you just like being on top, whatever it takes.

But whatever the reasons beyond simple greed and arrogance and vanity, these top elites are no different from a bunch of spoiled kids and not enough candy to go around. Take the following for example.

It's flu season and swine flu is the headline version we're now watching kinda closely in the news.

An article from Slate talks about scientific opinion on the relationships between different types of flu and their biological targets. The consensus is looking like all bird flues may not work on other animals and humans, but all flues may work on birds. So that all flu is avian flu. Whatever kind of flu, a global pandemic is something to consider.

At least you'd think that was on the minds of congress as they debated the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Think Progress reports that some senior Republicans in the Senate were responsible for stripping funds intended for flu "preparedness".

Excerpt:

On February 5, Karl Rove took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to argue against President Obama's Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act because, in his view, the spending was not targeted to create or preserve jobs. In particular, Rove complained about the fact that the bill included "$900 million for pandemic flu preparations." He contended that such spending was unnecessary because the health care sector "added jobs last year."

These political dog-fights that have erupted since the election of President Obama are all about the Republican party feeling "wobbly" at the top. It wasn't about the flu, it was about stealing "candy"

Here's another ..

Follow up:

When Joe Lieberman lost in the Democratic Connecticut Senatorial Primary in 2006, he switched parties so he could run again in the same race as an Independent. And win he did. Talk about a sore loser. He was feeling "too confined" I think.

Lieberman has since created an awkward position for Democratic opposition to his move. He has been fussed at a time or two, but you never hear anything much about it anymore. Even though he now routinely votes even more conservatively than when he was a Democrat. The Hill reports that now another Senator, Republican Arlen Specter(PA) has found party-switching a good thing too. One can only speculate what his true motives are and what this will mean in the Senate when controversy follows a Bill to the Floor.

Specter put out a statement on politicspa.com. Here is an excerpt:

"I have been a Republican since 1966. I have been working extremely hard for the Party, for its candidates and for the ideals of a Republican Party whose tent is big enough to welcome diverse points of view. While I have been comfortable being a Republican, my Party has not defined who I am. I have taken each issue one at a time and have exercised independent judgment to do what I thought was best for Pennsylvania and the nation.

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

The way I see it there is only one party because they all put coporate interests above citizen rights to more or less degrees. One party with two factions. The party designations are just there to give the reporters a way to distinguish them to the public. With that said, then Specter moving to the left may only end up moving the entire Left a little more to the Right. I keep hearing both sides opine awe in a thing called centrist positioning. That just means they do nothing that upsets anyone but the most extreme left. Sometimes the far right.

Here's the cream of the crop:

DemocracyNOW reports that wounded and medically discharged civilian contractors coming back from Iraq & Afganistan are having problems getting their health benefits.

Excerpt:

The bailed-out insurance giant AIG has come under intense criticism for handing out hundreds of millions in bonuses to top executives and billions in payments to other financial firms, all while receiving taxpayer aid. But new disclosures on its handling of insurance claims add a fresh angle to the ongoing scrutiny of AIG. According to the investigative website ProPublica, AIG and other top insurance companies have routinely denied medical benefits to civilian contractors wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many workers have returned home to face long, grinding battles for basic medical care, artificial limbs and psychological counseling.

These disabled contractors worked for companies like Kellog Brown & Root and Blackwater, now know as Xe.

Both Blackwater and AIG, among other big corporations, are in the news all the time anymore. And always in a bad light (Marketing campaigns aside). Blackwater got their media domination in Iraq over funding abuses and exactly what they were allowed to do, were doing while in Iraq. These days AIG has one of the major media spotlights over Troubled Asset Relief Program or Tarp funding complaints about misuse and misrepresentation. The CEOs of all these big companies socialize, scheme and run their private economies as associates with a common goal. Until the ladder starts to "wobble" that is ..

Politico always has a unique angle on one topic or the other of public interest. Chief political columnist, Roger Simon wrote the following narative in honor of George Orwell and his almost pre-cog vision of our world today in the context of our imperial leader's political perception of reality. Even if you have never read Nineteen Eighty-Four or seen the movie with Richard Burton & John Hurt, you can still see the absurdity of our National Security policies, and the absolute moral hazard it poses.

Here it is in it's entirety:

Interrogator: Come on. It’s time for your waterboarding.

Detainee: Didn’t you do that already?

Interrogator: We’ve waterboarded you only 182 times so far this month. We have to get in one more before the next budget.

Detainee: I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.

Interrogator: But we don’t know what we want to hear. That’s why we are waterboarding you.

Detainee: I thought a former U.S. government interrogator said there was “no actionable intelligence” you could gain from torture that you can’t gain “from regular tactics.”

Interrogator: But we have all this water on our hands. And all these boards. We’ve got to use them for something. The taxpayers don’t want their money wasted. Besides, the United States does not torture.

Detainee: It sure feels like torture.

Interrogator: You are mistaken. It feels like “harsh interrogation techniques” or “enhanced interrogation techniques” or “aggressive interrogation techniques.”

Detainee: But you have stripped me naked, slammed my head against the wall, deprived me of sleep and waterboarded me. That’s not torture?

Interrogator: The lawyers say it’s not. And lawyers are experts when it comes to torture. Besides, President George W. Bush said on Oct. 5, 2007: “This government does not torture people.”

Detainee: Why did he say that?

Interrogator: Because his administration had authorized the use of torture in August 2002. So I guess he was just trying to get ahead of the news cycle.

Detainee: But didn’t the Bush administration end waterboarding in 2003?

Interrogator: Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. Besides, the U.S. Constitution authorizes the use of torture.

Detainee: Where?

Interrogator: In the 28th Amendment.

Detainee: But there are only 27 amendments to the Constitution!

Interrogator: There are only 27 amendments in the public copy of the Constitution. In the Double Secret Bush Administration Constitution, all sorts of amendments were added. The 28th authorizes torture, the 29th authorizes wiretaps on U.S. citizens without warrants and the 30th authorizes the shooting of old guys in the face during quail hunts.

Detainee: Quail hunts?

Interrogator: Cheney wanted to cover all his bases. OK, here’s the first question before we waterboard you: There is a bomb about to go off in a major U.S. city. You must tell Kiefer Sutherland where it is before the next commercial break.

Detainee: Kiefer Sutherland?

Interrogator: Oh, wait. That’s a script from “24.” We’re getting our notes mixed up.

Detainee: This couldn’t be legal.

Interrogator: Oh, yes it is. Here is a memo written by Jay Bybee when he was an assistant attorney general under Bush. He wrote that “although the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death, prolonged mental harm must nonetheless result” in order to violate the law. And since you have been waterboarded only 182 times this month, no prolonged mental harm could possibly result in waterboarding you again.

Detainee: Bybee should be in a nuthouse.

Interrogator: Maybe, but Bush put him on the U.S. Court of Appeals instead. It was sort of a consolation prize.

Detainee: Consolation prize?

Interrogator: There was no opening on the Supreme Court.

Detainee: Can you tell me who won the presidential election?

Interrogator: Barack Obama. That’s why we have to send you overseas soon. We hear he’s going to ban torture in the United States. So we have to “extraordinary rendition” you before he takes office.

Detainee: What’s extraordinary rendition?

Interrogator: Extraordinary rendition is when we send you to a foreign country where they will torture you and send us back the information. It’s also called “torture by proxy.”

Detainee: And you do that so you can say the United States doesn’t torture?

Interrogator: Yes. After all, we’re a civilized country. Now, are you ready to tell us everything you know?

Detainee: “The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

Interrogator: Who said that?

Detainee: O’Brien in “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” It was written by George Orwell.

Interrogator: We’ll track this Orwell down and waterboard him.

Detainee: He’s dead.

Interrogator: Darn. The big fish always get away.