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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires
Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.
We are aware of all internet traditions.
Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
Republicans do not pay their debts.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
Everybody saw this coming.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
Battle won, war still ongoing.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.
The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.
Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.
Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.
Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.
The words do not have to be perfect.
DBrown
SIXTY! YES! Even Lieberman … the debate now starts but that is fine. A minor aside: the repub-a-thugs are shown to be loosers as Obama wins big. 2012 here we come!
R-Jud
Huh.
“Q: Did you support the [HCR] bill to curry favor with your constituents? You represent a mostly black district that is among the poorest in the nation.
A: This is a personal position of mine. I do believe that we need health care reform. I do believe that we as a government have a duty to help those who are in need but who cannot help themselves.
Q: So you’re saying you voted out of personal conviction, not politics?
A: Correct. I spent six years in the Society of Jesus, training to be a priest. I always adhere to what I call “the politics of the Gospel.” You have to take care of the poor, take care of the widows, visit the sick, help those who cannot help themselves.”
We got ourselves a thinkin’ Republican.
bernini
@R-Jud
damn Golden Rule always tricks some poor bastard into acting with humanity.
Halteclere
@R-Jud:
He’s screwed.
Comrade Jake
@DBrown:
I’d like to share your enthusiasm, but those conservative Dems who voted to get things started have all signaled they won’t vote for the final cloture unless the public option is taken out.
So the PO in the Senate Bill is going to get watered down, probably significantly. Which will trigger all sorts of hysterics from our friends on the left.
Good times.
JK
If it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press, Bitches
Chris Matthews and David Gregory are the Starburst Twins
Hardball Transcript, Nov 13, 2009
Tim Russert’s Office Lives
h/t http://www.newseum.org/exhibits_th/russert/index.htm
JK
David Broder is Mitch McConnell’s BFF
“In tomorrow’s Washington Post, David Broder, their distinguished senior columnist, certainly not a political conservative, expresses his reservation as a citizen about the steps that we could be about to take,” Mitch McConnell said.
Harry Reid couldn’t have been less impressed. “To focus on a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while is not where we should be.”
h/t http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/reid-slams-broder-as-a-retiree-who-writes-a-column-once-in-a-while.php
JK
@JK:
Fucking edit button
Comrade Jake
Here’s the summary of Matthews’ show this AM:
WTF?
JK
Michigan Town To Liz Cheney: We Want Gitmo Detainees, Not Your Fearmongering
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/terrorism/small-town-to-liz-cheney-we-want-gitmo-detainees-not-your-fearmongering
Punchy
Its 7:20AM onna Sunday and I’m at work. Life sux sometimes.
JK
@Comrade Jake:
Chris Matthews has had a non-stop erection ever since Sarah Palin’s book was published.
Brian j
Overhearing a few conversations about the health care debate from a few people yesterday, I remain shocked:
(a) how few people seem to agree with the overall idea but not some major parts of it that are deemed necessary to work. If they can explain to me how we can get universal coverage without a mandate and without the system being bankrupted by people who only sign up when sick but otherwise don’t pay in, I’m all ears. Also, if someone can explain to me how coverage is supposed to be expanded, whether you go with a left or right-leaning solution, without raising taxes, I’m all ears.
(b) how many people seem convinced they are going to lock you up. I’m not sure how much of a basis in reality this clause has compared to, say, the death panel nonsense, but I somehow doubt we are going to see lots of people thrown in prison because of this.
SiubhanDuinne
God forbid the Sunday Today show should mention the (to me pretty damned significant) news that the health care debate can now go forward in the Senate. No, their top stories were about some kid and his father who got separated on a subway, an astronaut whose wife had a baby while he was spacewalking, and something else I can’t remember but I know it had nothing to do with HCR in the US Senate. I said the hell with it and flipped over to the Food Network.
This afternoon I’m volunteering to escort the run-off candidates for Mayor and several City Council seats to and from their green rooms, make-up, and the tv studio for a final series of debates. I did something similar a few weeks ago for the six Mayoral candidates right before the general election.
This will be a lot more spread out from about 2:00-8:00 pm, with each CC district a separate debate. The two Mayoral candidates are last, and that race is a statistical dead heat now so should be a pretty exciting event. The funny thing is I don’t even live in the City of Atlanta so I can’t even vote in these elections. But I like to volunteer for quirky jobs like this, and during lengthy stretches of nothing happening there’ll be plenty of chance to read, catch up on B-J, etc. And it’s rainy and grey today so not a lot else to do :-)
R-Jud
@Punchy:
Yeah, I was working until 4 am yesterday and am just about to finally finish up in an hour.
kay
@Brian j:
I’ve written this several times here, so I apologize if it’s a repeat, but we already have mandates for health insurance purchase, so we might look at them.
We currently mandate that unmarried parents of children provide health insurance. It was a federal rule change in HHS and it was written into state law, in 2007. It’s fully operational, and I deal with it.
It’s worked out like this: it gets people signed up. They end up in Medicaid, or in S-CHIP, or in their employer-provided plan. If they don’t have any of those options, they pay 5% of gross towards a “medical support order”, but only if they’re at or above income guidelines. If they’re below income guidelines, they end up in Medicaid or S-CHIP. I have yet to write an order. It has not been an issue. We’re not packing anyone off to jail.
The point is not to sanction, it’s to make people aware of what’s available, and slot them in there.
It’s worked really well. I thought it was going to be this huge draconian hated disaster, but I was wrong.
I think the Senate bill handles the group least likely to comply (young people) in two ways. It extends parent’s coverage to age 26, and it offers subsidies for purchase to those over the Medicaid limit but not covered under an employer plan.
The mandates haven’t been discussed at all, but there’s mandates in place now (my state also mandates that students at public universities be covered, they purchase a plan through the college). I don’t know why anyone isn’t looking at the mandates we have now.
Ash Can
Also known as “representing your district” (cf. “doing your fucking job”).
WereBear
Cangratulations, National Press. You are now no more than one of those buttons, embossed with the word “Press,” that the Three Stooges used to steal so they could sneak into special events.
I know it’s been touched on in a previous thread, but I was watching when Chris Matthews went off on his, “The common man doesn’t want a smart person leading the nation, they want someone with the common touch.”
Politics, which always flirted too much with celebrity, has now gone Full Frontal Britney, as in Sarah Palin.
And while I do not give them too much credit for Bond Villain levels of planning, this degrades the very point of politics. It’s supposed to be about bettering our governance, and thus our lives. Instead, it’s a popularity contest, with “issues” nothing more than another buzzword.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the fact that I’m now living in the future the science fiction writers of the fifties warned us about.
jeffreyw
Bah. Fuckin tracfone still a brick, bastards.
WereBear
Yep, several years ago I got a Tracfone, and about three months in, I used my card to up my minutes (had to do it every month) and it took my money and did not charge my phone.
I watched a movie while on hold to try and correct this, and gave up as the closing credits rolled. Wound up donating the phone to charity.
Been down on Tracfone since.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@R-Jud:
—
Not so much, I think:
__
SiubhanDuinne
Cripes. A 90-minute power outage last night; now — just as CBS Sunday Morning started — cable has gone out.
It’s raining but no high winds or lightning or anything. Don’t know what’s going on; it’s like I have an incompetent poultergeist living here.
demkat620
Morning all! Having a nice cup of Archer Farms Pumpkin Spice Coffee. Not too bad.
Then my son’s babsketball game and then more turkey day prep.
I have an actual honest to god set of Silver cutlery that has been in my family since the 1880s. How it wound up with me is a looooong story but, I use it every Thanksgiving and its all got to be cleaned and polished.
Fun day!
kay
@WereBear:
It is scary to look at, because what are they really saying? The flip side of this is that according to pundits, it doesn’t matter what Obama’s selling, as long as he’s selling it effectively. They have no interest in looking at the actual product, and they have now all but assured politicians that as long as it’s presented in a way they consider “effective”, the politician won’t hear a critical word out of them as to the actual product. You can sell a load of crap as long as you tug at their heartstrings and it polls well, and media will be on board.
We also know that this is true, from our past experiences with them, see: Iraq, medicare D, tax cuts, etc.
The Senate bill that was voted on last night is considered a good piece of work, by people who care about health care policy. It’s getting good reviews. Because that doesn’t matter, in the media analysis, we know that it could be a load of crap, and that wouldn’t matter, either.
demkat620
@kay: I can’t decide who’s worse. Tweety or Chucky T.
Tweety has serious mental issues but Chuck can’t get out of the horse race mode of reporting.
He can analyze anything without a who’s winning who’s losing scenario attached.
DBrown
@Comrade Jake: Yes, I realized that the bill will be watered down, porked (is that even a word?) and god knows what all the massive special interests groups will add; but the point is, after all the doom and gloom about not getting 60 votes to close and that Reid is such a loser, well, we got the vote and repub-a-thugs lost (which these thugs have said means Obama wins.) At least we will finally get over the hump of national health care for everyone (except those excepted.) This was a huge win for our side and while defeat can easily be taken from the jaws of victory by Demorats, the big barrier has been crossed or should I say the Rubicon has been crossed?
Brian J
@kay:
Thanks for that. I’ll make a mental note to bring this up when I hear people talking about it.
kay
@demkat620:
I wasn’t all that impressed with his horse race reporting either. The Democratic primary rules were a little complicated, and he learned those. That was smart, because he was the only one on tv who knew them, but it’s his only real claim to fame.
I think he was over-promoted based on his reading the DNC delegate rules, and coming off as an “expert” and, well, he can count. I’m just not sure either of those things that he did do should have qualified him for anything.
Rey
Thanks to you guys for watching these pathetic Sunday “talk” shows, I can’t stomach it. Lately I’ve been either watching the E! channel, Food Network and Lifetime. I have become very fond of my Dish network digital music channels as well, my fav is the Cashmere channel which plays a mix of easy, smooth alternative with a splash of neo-soul tunes- I’m lovin’ it…..
donovong
OK. They had me getting a monstrous lump in my throat about hungry people before I had my coffee. Then a story about people who pay $2500 for a kitchen knife.
That’s a perfect commentary on our contry’s fucked up priorities.
Brick Oven Bill
Well, you guys have a nice Sunday morning. Personally, I’m off to exchange my work for Obama’s friend’s money.
1. Don’t Steal.
2. Don’t Fight.
3. Respect the Workplace.
I suspect that I will learn much more from this experience than I would learn from watching TV. Perhaps there is a network of Teabaggers at the Facility.
Have a nice day.
kay
@Brian J:
You’re welcome. The college mandate rules inspired a change in state law to mandate coverage under a parent’s policy longer, so that took care of a certain segment of those college students who had parent’s insurance available. The objective was to get them covered. To make the pool of uninsured smaller and smaller, over time. The objective wasn’t to collect sanctions. It was to reach the targeted population. It is important to make sure lower income (not poor people, poor people have Medicaid) have a program or subsidy to access.
This stuff evolves in practice, and states have been dealing with it for a while. If it doesn’t work, they tweak it. It’s not like a speeding ticket, where they’re trying to punish change the disfavored behavior. It’s more like a public health approach, where (for example) you can’t enroll a kid in public school until they’re vaccinated.
SiubhanDuinne
@Rey: Well, wish I could help you out but after 40 minutes of blue screen on the tv I phoned Charter to find out what was going on with cable service. Apparently it’s “routine maintenance” and cable won’t be restored until 5:00 pm today.
geg6
Chuckie T may be the media pundit who has most disappointed me. I was so impressed with him as he seemed to have actually done some homework and, as a numbers guy, he was excellent at analyzing them and making them understandable. But he has fallen so far from that guy I thought I saw during the election. It’s like he’s a pod person like Invasion of the Body Snathcers. Village zombies, indeed.
geg6
Um, that’s supposed to be “Snatchers.”
valdivia
I am sure in a couple of months we will have an exact panel on Chris Matthews’s show about how starburst sarah lost the independents (which she never had) and how Obama is once again a comeback kid, but only because they have to change the story you know? It makes no sense to them if people are not up and down. Also lost on this freaking Village–*they* are making Palin important, they are the ones that promote her vapid pronunciations as if they were policy position. Its all on *you* Village idiots.
valdivia
@geg6:
me too, but you know what it is? Is that he had the necessary tools to be an insightful number cruncher who did not get spun out by the memes because he was focusing on numbers. Now, un-moored from data he goes with the Village and does news as if it was a horse race. Pathetic. Fallows has yet another great post about the China trip, and will have more the following days.
WereBear
@kay: Precisely.
The Worm Ouroboros has swallowed its tail and become completely self-referential. The only reality is TeeVee reality. The only metric is eyeballs on the screen. The personal experience of millions is not important because it’s never on TeeVee.
And it’s a self-sealing bubble, because anyone who does point out any particular emperor is not only bollocks-naked, but actually has their intestines hanging out… is exiled from the discussion if they insist enough to put the bubble in danger.
This is why so many talking heads love to “get down with the homies” by invoking their working class roots and mythologizing the Common Man. It’s a big Bubble Patch to push falsity instead of reality yet again.
Rey
@Siubhan D
I had Charter service when I lived in western NC for about 5 years, I see things haven’t really changed with them. They still suck- I have always subscribed to Time Warner/Comcast (whatever it is now) until moving in my house 4 yrs ago and switched to satellite. I hated it at first, but too busy and lazy to switch back over. As long as I can get MSNBC for Rachel and HBO, as well as some other channels, I will stick with Dish.
arguingwithsignposts
I supposed everybody’s seen this: Beck stakes out activist role in politics.
kay
@WereBear:
I really do despair, partly because I’m not happy with the quality of the work of the people whom media have determined are liberal spokespersons. That woman from The Nation, Katrina, is just a lousy, lousy advocate. She’s incapable of discussing specifics, or rebutting an actual assertion. She’s rebutting something wholly unrelated to what was just said, nearly all the time. She qualifies every position she takes, with a full predicate paragraph establishing her Lefty cred (nothing is ever liberal enough) , and completely distracts from the person or policy she is ostensibly defending, by doing that. This is not about her. She never learned that. She has a sanctimonious moralistic hectoring tone that apes the same tone adopted by the other side. It’s not persuasive. It’s like grim medicine, and she’s going to make you take it.
I want to scream and yell when I see her “defending” health care. She’s an actual liability.
How did I get stuck with these advocates, when there are a lot of smart and engaging liberals? I feel as if it’s deliberate.
WereBear
@arguingwithsignposts: Keith Olbermann was totally right about Beck when he calls him Lonesome Rhodes.
A Face in the Crowd wasn’t a movie. It’s a cookbook!
Max
I’m sorry, but Talk Left has a post lamenting the poor Ft Hood shooter, and calling him (a) a suspect and (b) indicating how “barbaric” it is to seek the death penalty because the poor guy is already paralyzed.
I worry about the death penalty being enforced in cases where there isn’t absolute proof, but there is no question that this guy killed 13 people. He should be put to death.
I guess no one is ever guilty in their eyes, except of course, Obama, who is guilty of being the worse.president.ever. TL is one Obama-hating, PUMA-promoting, wacked-out site.
Sorry for the mini-rant and for those opposed to the death penalty in this case, I’d love to hear why, other than all capital punishment is bad.
Scrutinizer
@Max: Actually, “All capital punishment is bad” is a pretty good argument.
WereBear
@Max: Ouch. That kind of reflexive defensiveness is exactly what all liberals get parodied as being. Thanks, Talk Left!
Well, strictly speaking, he is innocent until proven guilty (which is a legal construct to ensure his rights are protected) and yes, he is paralyzed now… through his own actions.
Though there is a part of me that thinks his reaction when he thought he was going to awaken in some kind of paradise; only to find he was alive, permanently injured, and facing many counts of first degree murder… must have been the Mother of All Reality Checks.
I’m not at all saying that it is punishment enough. (Which seems to be a bit of the subtext of Talk Left’s stance.)
But in a Karmic sense, it’s a good start.
HRA
@kay:
Precisely why she is invited on Morning Joe many times.
Chuck Todd is definitely out of his element. He would have done well hosting rather than reporting.
Sarah Palin is the news they cannot ignore right now. I know I get drawn to reading or listening to it at intervals when, in fact, I really want her to go away.
JGabriel
With a middle-aged incontinent white guy lying on the floor behind the desk clutching his chest?
That seems kind of tasteless.
.
JGabriel
WereBear:
Cooking with Pooh isn’t a cookbook! It’s a … OH GOD, NO!
.
WereBear
@JGabriel: It’s not only tasteless; his subsequent media canonization was mostly them patting themselves on the back that they are still Relentless Defenders of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
They even use, and abuse, their own,
Max
Ladies and Gay Men –
Levi Johnson photos here.
Count me definitely on Team Levi.
jwb
@Comrade Jake: Maybe that’s the plan: get us all worried that nothing will pass, so that we’ll be elated when anything passes. And given that the GOP has decided to play the role of all asshole all the time, it may well be the best that can be hoped for.
kay
@HRA:
That’s what I’ve concluded too. I hope she’s not walking out of there thinking she won that round.
When the moronic cast and characters of Morning Joe are kicking your ass, daily, it might be time to bring in another advocate. I watched Matalin clean her clock the other day, because Katrina was incapable of stating an on-topic simple declarative sentence. She was hapless on rebutting Matalin’s lies on health care, so went to the stand-by “I’m losing this argument” angry rant on Bush, which was just what Matalin was waiting for. Thanks, Katrina. I don’t think she has any idea what is in any of these proposals, instead she seems to be promoting her own fantasy proposal, sort of, with a lot of deferring to the conservative idiot and back tracking and qualifying.
If she’s my “liberal policy wonk” I’m fucking doomed, and she’s hopeless as a political advocate.
What happened to Howard Dean? He was fabulous on health care. Is that why he doesn’t get invited back?
jwb
@Brian j: I wouldn’t say that We, the People are stupid, but we certainly don’t like to think about things too hard. We also have the belief that every problem has a simple solution and we don’t (or won’t) take the time to consider why simple solutions often won’t work or come into conflict with other of our simple solutions, etc. Then we get mad when our simple solutions turn out other than we imagine.
JGabriel
Max:
Well, I am opposed to all capital punishment, so I don’t know how well I can make the specific case against in this instance, but here goes:
Let’s assume, just for a moment, that this guy really is a terrorist, as the right keeps screaming. In that case, you probably want to keep the guy alive for the purpose of information gathering.
Now, let’s assume he’s not a terrorist.
Did he go out and, with all deliberateness, kill one person every – oh, say, four months – 13 times? No, he killed 13 people in on burst of violence. Yes, it’s still 13 people who are still just as dead either way, but all in one burst of violence suggests that we may be dealing with a psychotic break here, rather than a sociopath — in which case an insanity defense, precluding the death penalty, would be appropriate.
Finally, there’s the argument that when the state kills, it lowers society to the level of the murderer. But you know that one already.
.
Chris
The wonkette’s take on an Ambinder article…the article name resulted in unexpected keyboard nose/coffee interface!!!
http://wonkette.com/412339/the-sausage-is-piping-hot-on-obamas-taint-or-something
Max
@JGabriel: Thank you for your thoughts. I understand where you are coming from, even if I disagree.
I respect those that just don’t believe in the death penalty, but there is a large divide between that position and the one I read on that website, which implies the killer as a victim.
gwangung
@Comrade Jake:
Let them hysteric away, as long as it’s USEFUL hysterics (i.e., putting pressure on the Blue Dogs). That’s politics.
@kay:
Actually, I think this bill will turn out to be a POS—compared to the improvements made to the program in the coming years. Yes, fight to make the bill as good as possible now, but the important thing is to establish a program, because it’s a lot more likely changes will only need a majority vote.
WereBear
I can feel sorry for people as well as anyone, but this person truly brought it on themselves.
I’m of the school that if a perpetrator made any attempt to conceal what they were planning on doing, they were:
a) planning
b) aware this wasn’t what others would consider kosher
And him buying a separate gun for his actions falls under first-degree, premeditated, murder. Was it religiously or politically motivated? Maybe. But that really doesn’t matter, does it?
I agree that terrorism is a law and order problem, and needs a law and order solution. Politicizing it and conceding the whacko “might have had a point” does not solve any kind of problem.
keestadoll
@Max: IMO, the Ft. Hood shooter as well as the GITMO detainees should not be put to death–not so much because I’m dead set against the death penalty per se, but because that punishment isn’t punishment to these individuals. Instead, it should be life in solitary, compulsory lipstick wearing, and a 24 hour potpourri of Britney Spears, Madonna, and Beonce videos.
Bill H
@kay:
He’s very manly. He has a deep voice. He has good hair. And his beard is sexy.
Chat Noir
@kay: I mentioned this on a couple different threads yesterday. David Plouffe’s new book keeps coming back to that same theme: the media is out of touch with what the folks outside of Washington think or believe. From the Obama’s campaign’s start, the media was way off base on practically everything. I’m only up to the end of 2007 in the book so I’m curious to see what their thoughts were from there.
WereBear
@Chat Noir: Oooh, I just finished it. Heck, I wanted it to be three times as long! Great read, fulla good stuff.
Don’t fight the media. Bypass it.
kay
@gwangung:
We’re going to disagree. I agree completely that the thing will change in practice, but I think the bill as it is now is a really solid piece of work. No one wants to talk about cost controls in Medicare, but they’re absolutely vital, and they’re in there.
I think the most beneficial part of the bill to young people is just that. It won’t matter politically, because the truth is no one gets any credit for forestalling what might have happened, but slowing Medicare costs should be of concern to every young person, and if it doesn’t pass, what “might have happened” will happen, and that program will be unsustainable.
It’s worth it for that alone. Someone had to address that, and Reid (rather bravely, actually) did.
We tried the conservative “market solution”, Medicare Advantage, and it failed miserably. It put us further in the hole. It back-fired.
This has to be fixed, or young people are screwed.
JenJen
So, Chuck Todd is being a whiny little Sally on his Twitter feed today. How dare people become “back seat drivers” to WH press coverage!
Must be seen to be believed.
Scrutinizer
@Max: Somewhere in a dark closet, Sarah is drooling.
Chat Noir
@WereBear: Excellent! As I read it, I keep thinking that Obama is quite far ahead of everyone else. Mind you, there are certainly days where I wish he would do things a little differently (i.e., going after the Bush cabal for crimes against humanity, going a different route regarding the economic crisis, etc.) but then I remember he’s WAY smarter than me and most everyone else in Washington. If he’s governing the way his team ran the campaign, then there is hope for this country.
I’m totally pissed that Plouffe’s book hasn’t gotten the media coverage that Governor Sarah Dipshit’s has. At least Plouffe isn’t making stuff up. One of my favorite parts so far is when he said that the best writer on the campaign was the candidate himself.
kay
@Chat Noir:
I can just give you my current understanding, or take on what they’re doing, and if I’m right it’s going to be a really difficult, but fruitful, three years.
I think they are actually trying to address these problems, in a long-term solution sense, and that’s where the media disconnect comes in.
Health care reform is about a lot of things, but what I (now) suspect it’s mostly about is actually dealing with what are long-term structural problems. This is not a patch. It’s an attempt to turn it around and point it in a different direction. We can’t continue like this. Republicans know it and Democrats know it. They know darn well that all of this is politically dangerous, but they’re trying it anyway. That’s what I now think, anyway. There’s no reason, really, he has to jump into all this. Obama could dodge, easily. He’s decided not to.
That’s why I’m not all that comforted by a comparison with the campaign, although I see your point that media were wrong about that consistently, and I wish I were comforted.
These issues are actually difficult. There is going to be resistance to even looking at them, let alone dealing with them. Campaigns are easier.
gwangung
@kay: Oh, we don’t disagree that much. I think my comments are pitched more for folks who are thinking in the short term and that because it doesn’t deal with certain areas now, it will never do so.
Key thing is to get something passed now; the fact that it has some good stuff in it is even better.
Scrutinizer
@JenJen: I liked this:
__
Does Chuckie think that the emessem are the fucking referees? At best, they’re just the ego-stricken dumbass clueless wannabe color commentators.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Scrutinizer: Or what Atrios said:
__
Chat Noir
@kay:
What I meant to say was that the campaign thought in terms of the short and long run. I understand your concern that campaigning and governing are two completely different things — and I agree.
JK
@Max:
Given that Talk Left’s Jeralyn Merritt previously wrote
I’m not shocked about her comments posted regarding Nidal Hasan. While I think life imprisonment in solitary confinement is a suitable alternative to the death penalty, Merritt’s post makes me want to take a shower to wipe off the slime. If Hasan is permanently paralyzed, that’s fine with me.
Nidal Hasan should be fitted with the device used on Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange that prevented him from closing his eyes so that he could be forced to watch an endless loop of episodes of Friends and According to Jim.
In light of all the negative comments posted about Chris Matthews over the past few days, the best thing BJ readers can do to combat his rampant stupidity is stop watching his 2 programs. Matthews is a fucking asshole and isn’t worth a minute of anyone’s time.
Max
@Scrutinizer: I wonder how long before we get a GBCW Tweet from Chuckie T. He’s learning that the Twittersphere doesn’t feel the need to jerk him off like his counterparts at MSNBC do.
WereBear
@kay: Well, I feel the opposite.
The fact that they ran a campaign that captured enough hearts’n’minds to elect an African American with less than a decade’s worth of experience against a hostile press, hostile nominees, and a war hero of long tenure and well-known, if bogus, “maverick” credentials… is nothing short of amazing.
If they know how to do amazing, they can do it again.
JenJen
@Scrutinizer: He must still be jet-lagged, or something:
Yeah, Chuckie T. It’s just funny as hell, isn’t it? So, is he addressing those tweets to the blogosphere in general, or Fallows in particular?
kay
@Chat Noir:
The terror trials are a good example, so I’ll use that.
It would be easy, and politically expidient, for Holder to have essentially punted. They’ve already taken the political damage (ridiculously, I think) for not “closing Gitmo” so Holder could have shoved the whole mess off on the military tribunals and washed his hands. No one gives a shit that they don’t work properly, in any sense, and they’re conducted in Cuba, and media will continue to ignore them, and really, detainees, like all prisoners, are forgotten the minute they’re picked up and held. There was no good political reason to address this at all. Bush punted, no one cared.
He’s trying to come up with a way to approach this that makes sense, going forward, and he’s ready to take a political hit to do that. He needs a structure, an approach, that is more reliable than the ad hoc Bush havoc approach. That’s what he’s been handed, and he’s using the tools he has to create some process that is predictable, because process is everything in law. Without a structure that both sides can rely on, it’s per se inequitable. It can’t be otherwise. The players have to know the rules.
JK
Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection at the Museum of Arts and Design in NY, on view thru January 31, 2010, features more than 200 pins, many of which Secretary Albright wore to communicate a message or a mood during her diplomatic tenure. After Read My Pins closes at the Museum of Arts and Design, the exhibition will travel to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. The exhibition will then be on view in Washington, DC in the summer of 2010 and Indianapolis, Indiana in the fall of 2010.
h/t http://collections.madmuseum.org/code/emuseum.asp?emu_action=advsearch&rawsearch=exhibitionid/,/is/,/498/,/true/,/false&profile=exhibitions
sparky
@kay: as i am one of those people under the impression that this health care bill may make things worse than what we have now, if that’s possible, i would appreciate you pointing me to an analysis that suggests otherwise, other than the usual “well it’s a start.”
my major gripe, fyi, is that if there are no cost controls on what the carriers can charge, then this is simply shifting the locus of profits from the private sector to the public sector. i see no reason to celebrate this.
kay
@WereBear:
Okay. I don’t want you to think I’m despondent, or anything, because that’s not true.
I’m a little slow, and it’s just sort of sinking in how all of the things they have to address are just fraught with controversy and angst. Just look at the loud debates we have had in the last ten months. We’ve discussed more in Obama’s first year than we’ve discussed in my adult lifetime. Big stuff, too. That’s because these are real problems. They’re bigger than “Hillary says Obama loves terrorists !”.
And we know, don’t we, that our media are completely unequipped to deal with presenting any of the decisions that have to be made in anything like a factual or informative manner. So, Obama and Co. have a big job ahead of them. I’m pulling for them, though, and my only good quality is patience :)
asiangrrlMN
@JK: Hey, you! Good to see you back in high dudgeon.
I would say to the bobble heads, um yeah. She’s making a sensational splash because you are aiding and abetting her! I mean, if they didn’t pimp out her book and whatever else La Palina does at any given moment, there would be no there there. Give me a break! I couldn’t even read all of your blockquote because I was getting too pissed off.
Brachiator
@Brian j:
I understand this perfectly, although I don’t think in the end that it will hold up health care reform. You are forcing people to pay for something that they may not use simply because you need to expand the pool of all people covered. You are also forcing people to spend their money for something that they might not otherwise choose to spend it on, or that they might defer until a later time. Now, you can say that the public good is vitally important, but you can’t deny that it is an intrusion. There were other ways of handling this, but the Congress picked the one that was most likely to stick in people’s craw.
By the way, the original Massachusetts health care plan included a mandated which punished people who didn’t comply by taking away the personal exemption when they filed their income taxes. Everybody thought this would be OK with the people. They were wrong and they had to re-think this.
With social security, you pay in because ultimately you are going to get something back (even though in reality, some rightfully get more than their original contribution).
I’m not sure that this would necessarily bankrupt the system. It would depend on every person who didn’t sign on getting tremendously sick at the same time. Very unlikely.
However, this does actually indirectly support mandates. Another thing that they found in Massachusetts is that some people didn’t like mandates (which they had to pay or get a subsidy for) because they preferred using emergency rooms to get their health care, since they could skip out on the bills and not pay at all.
You got to raise taxes. But you can make this work if you can demonstrate that the tax dollars will be used responsibly. Unfortunately, based on the millions squandered with the economic stimulus package and bonehead tax gimmicks like the first time home buyer credit, Congress may be intent on subverting a good idea with typical fiscal irresponsibility.
I wouldn’t entirely blame your friends for this. Early on the president and the Congress failed to explain clearly how the plan would work and how it would be administered. Part of this was a consequence of Obama simply outlining what he wanted to see and letting Congress flesh out the details. So, in the beginning, there was nothing available to explain.
However, the House Bill is out there, and here is a simple question. Does anyone know how any proposed mandate would work? What happens if you don’t comply? Where can anyone go to quickly find the answer?
Obviously, the government is not going to throw anyone in jail. But it’s just dumbass to tell people you are going to force them to pay into the health care system and not spell out the consequences for evading or refusing to do so.
kay
@sparky:
Sparky, I think the costs controls on private carriers will manifest in two ways. First, there is a number. I think it’s 9% of gross in the Senate bill. That’s a “reasonable” cost for health insurance, and that’s what the subsidies are going to be pegged to. Because the gubmint are going to picking up X amount to subsidize purchase, that a cost constraint. In my state, the mandate for unmarried parents is pegged at 5% of gross, with no subsidy. They’re not just pulling this stuff out of their ass. It’s operating now.
The second element are the guidelines for provider quality of care, not quantity of care. Providers will have to get more efficient and deliver higher quality if they want to get paid. That had to happen. Those are applied to Medicare, but there is a lot of data that as goes Medicare, so goes the private carrier, so that’s the plan.
Remember, we’re creating an exchange for health insurance purchase. The public option is part of that exchange, but the exchange itself has value, as far as competition goes.
I would ask you to stop focusing on the cost of insurance (include that, but don’t rely solely on that) and start focusing on the cost of health care. Both are unsustainable, but they are tied together. Insurance companies are raising rates and denying coverage because they have to turn a profit. That’s true. It is also true that insurance companies are raising rates because the cost of health care is going up. Tied together. Not a perfect match, (the profit angle) but it’s there.
JK
@asiangrrlMN:
Always good to see you posting too.
As long as Sarah Palin continues to make male pundits and tv news execs INCREDIBLY HORNY she’s going to receive an absurd amount of coverage on cable news. If Chris Matthews’ wife has any brains, she’d make him sleep on the couch until he stops drooling over Palin.
DBrown
@Max: Where do these shit heads like you come from?
Chuck Butcher
@Max:
WTF is there about the phrase “beyond a reasonable doubt” that escapes you? That is what the “Guilty” verdict means and that’s what is applied to the Death Penalty. How in the hell do you propose to separate your version out? Fucking make things up as you go along to support your emotional reactions.
You either get along with the idea that you’re going to murder innocent people in the quest for the ultimate judgement or don’t. You think there is some middle ground where you’re infallible – utter fucking nonsense couched in reasonableness. Nominations for god are closed.
sparky
@kay: thanks for your response, but i don’t understand something here. maybe i am just being dense, but if i understand you correctly, you are saying that people will be obliged to pay 9% of their gross income for health insurance (NOT care), correct? ok, so how exactly is that a constraint on the federal government to keep costs in line? i agree that might be the case in a state, which, after all cannot print money. but it’s not a limit in the federal system, and more importantly, i don’t see how it acts as a constraint on the suppliers.
#2: i agree with you that guidelines may reduce some costs, but again, this seems like the notion that changing from paper to electronic records is somehow going to pick up the inefficiencies. 30% of the healthcare dollar is spent administratively–there’s no way (or at least i know of no evidence to suggest) that these kinds of reforms will alleviate this issue, though i agree it might slow the rate of increase in the future.
#3. the whole idea of exchanges seems a bit muzzy to me. is there a site explaining the details? and who’s to say that the efficiencies achieved through any of these measures aren’t captured by the insurers who will remain in a much better place to do so?
i am trying–hard–to like this legislation, but even leaving aside the mess it will likely be after a real debate, it seems to me that the changes are mostly smoke and mirrors except for the tinkering in ways that are so obvious that they could not be denied. i am reminded here of the Obama credit card reform, which apparently turned out to mean nicer forms with no cap on rates.
oh, and of course costs as well as insurance need to be controlled. but i don’t see how strengthening the hand of the insurers is going to do that.