MaxTax will cost about $775 billion over 10 years. That's a lot of money, as the GOP is pointing out.
Would you like to know how long $775 billion would last in the Department of Defense? Well, if you add the base budget and supplementals for 2010, $775 billion would last. . .
That's right, the most-debated bill of this Congress, the one currently being slammed by Republicans and their Blue lapDogs for being so expensive, would manage to fund our bloated military-industrial complex for just one year and two months.
Feel free to pass this dose of perspective on to your representatives in Congress.
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We waited months for this?
Max Baucus's healthcare reform bill has finally been introduced. Wow, there's a ringing endorsement. Only Max Baucus and the insurance companies like this dog. "The Baucus framework is just an absolute joke," Potter told reporters after reviewing the bill. "It is an absolute gift to the industry. And if that is what we see in the legislation, (America's Health Insurance Plans chief) Karen Ignagni will surely get a huge bonus." Pop the champagne corks!
"Potter said the proposal would not provide affordable coverage," Politico reports. "It gives the industry too much latitude to charge higher premiums based on age and geographic location, fails to mandate employer coverage, and pushes consumers into plans with limited benefits..." Not to mention a lack of a public option.
"I was stunned to see that the bill allows insurers to charge up to five times as much for some enrollees as for others, based on age," writes health analyst RJ Eskow. "...The Baucus bill allows insurers to use age as a proxy for costly medical conditions and make coverage prohibitively expensive for those who need it the most."
In other words, age would now be a pre-existing condition and you can expect to pay out the nose as you get older. This isn't what you'd call "reform," so much as it is just making things worse.
Keep reading: http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2009/09/we-waited-months-for-this.html
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A financial penalty may not be enough in this extreme case. The Independent:
Trafigura, the oil-trading company at the centre of the scandal caused by the dumping of tons of toxic waste in one of the world's poorest countries, could be prosecuted for murder after a dossier of evidence was submitted to a court in the Netherlands yesterday, alleging that the sludge caused deaths and serious injuries.
A complaint filed by Greenpeace Netherlands calls for a Dutch prosecution arising from Trafigura's actions in July 2006 – when a chartered tanker carrying the contaminated waste arrived in Amsterdam – to be widened to include events in Ivory Coast a month later which caused thousands of people to fall ill after tons of the foul-smelling slurry was dumped in the port of Abidjan.
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Republican Gomorrah–Six Questions for Max Blumenthal
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Why the Baucus plan is dead, why co-ops won't work, and why you should be happy about it
As anyone could have predicted weeks ago, the "alternative bill" Max Baucus has presented is a complete and utter joke. But don't be mad, progressives. Be happy. Before this piece of crap appeared, there was all sorts of speculation about what an alternative might be. Talk of "co-ops" actually sounded like a feasible idea to a lot of people. Now, however, they can see them and read about them, and now, we can demonstrate that the alternative Blue Dog plan is, well, a dog. If we play this right, we can make a strong reform plan with a robust public option a reality.
That's why progressives should be glad he presented his plan. Baucus is covering his ass, and the asses of the other Blue Dogs, who are in states with a significant population of right wing cretins. There's no possible way this plan will go through intact. It's simply not possible, because it makes no sense. If I was able to pick it apart this easily in the first 50 pages, who besides right wing cranks will buy its nonsense?
We just won the war. But keep marching, anyway.
That's pretty optimistic, but I hope he's right.
That was just the first piece I ran across on the backlash against the idiotic 'Insurance Co. Profit Preservation Plan'. It won't be the last.
From the hand job Rick Stengel just gave Glenn Beck:
If you get your information from liberal sources, the crowd numbered about 70,000, many of them greedy racists. If you get your information from conservative sources, the crowd was hundreds of thousands strong, perhaps as many as a million, and the tenor was peaceful and patriotic.
I long for the day when both Time and Newsweek go under. It won't be long now.
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In seven states plus the District of Columbia, "getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition." The insurance industry figures that if "you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure," but what it really does is punish these victims for something that wasn't their fault.
And this: Anthem Blue Cross considers pregnancy optional and therefore not necessary to insure:
"The point of insurance is to insure against catastrophic care costs. That's what you're trying to aggregate and pool for such things as heart attacks and cancer," said an Anthem Blue Cross spokesman. "Having a child is a matter of choice. Dealing with an adult onset illness, such as diabetes, heart disease breast or prostate cancer, is not a matter of choice."
Also, Caesarean sections are now being considered as a pre-existing condition and aren't being covered. From a 2008 New York Times story about a Colorado woman who had Golden Rule Insurance:
She was turned down because she had given birth by Caesarean section. Having the operation once increases the odds that it will be performed again, and if she became pregnant and needed another Caesarean, Golden Rule did not want to pay for it. A letter from the company explained that if she had been sterilized after the Caesarean, or if she were over 40 and had given birth two or more years before applying, she might have qualified.
Good. If it isn't a medical necessity, I don't want to pay for it. Just like I don't want to pay for people that are cranking out tons of kids like these:
Q: Is our children learning?
A: No, they is not.
What kind of drooling-level stupid does one have to be to have guessed that Barack Obama wrote the Declaration of Independence?
The entire depressing rundown, with the most popular answers, can be found here.
Fun fact: 61% of Americans don't believe in the most fundamental theory of biological science, a.k.a. the theory of evolution. Instead, they believe in some idiotic superstition passed down over centuries by illiterate shepherds then written down by only halfway-literate priests rather than good, hard, fact-based science. Cretins with nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons.
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A little bit of corruption
The understated bit of news is that the investigation began while Bush was still in office, though after Alberto the Toady was gone.
Yay! Nancy Pelosi yet again lets Weepy set the agenda! The GOP is out of power and stronger than ever! Thanks Nancy!
The House voted Thursday to deny all federal funds for ACORN in a GOP-led strike against the scandal-tainted community organizing group that comes just three days after the Senate took similar action. "ACORN has violated serious federal laws, and today the House voted to ensure that taxpayer dollars would no longer be used to fund this corrupt organization," said second-ranked House Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia.
The vote, on a provision attached to a student aid bill, was 345-75, with Democrats supplying all the "no" votes.
Worst. Speaker. Ever.
And in a related story ...
Pelosi: 2010 will be toughest midterm elections ever for Democrats.
Jesus. And whose fault will that be, Nancy?
Worst. Speaker. Ever.
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Here's a tip for you CNN
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Yes, its another chapter of IOKIYAR…
Reporting on conservaturd criticism of the Obama administration's czars, the WaComPo stated, "Lists drawn up by conservative groups detail as many as 40 czars linked to Obama, although some of the positions existed before he took office, and some won Senate approval." The Post further reported that "Richard Nixon named a drug czar and an energy czar, and George W. Bush named czars to coordinate policy efforts on a range of issues. By one count, Bush had 36 czar positions filled by 47 people during his eight years as president [sic]."Though Fox "News" bleated in faux outrage that Prez Obama's "czars are not subjected to congressional oversight," many of those the nutwork were labelling "czars" were confirmed by the Senate or were appointed through legislation passed by Congress.
The Democratic National Committee followed up saying "Most telling of the credibility of these attacks is that they come from the same Republican Party that didn't utter a peep about the 47 documented czars in the Bush misadministration."Word.
Bonus: the White House fires back.
When asked on Fox News if he had opposed any of President Bush's "czars," Rep. Darrell Issa admitted "No we didn't" - despite previously claiming that czars "undermine" transparency and accountability. In fact, the Bush administration had many of the same officials and advisors now described as "czars," including Afghanistan czar, AIDS czar, Drug czar, Faith-based czar, Intelligence czar, Mideast Peace Czar, Regulatory Czar, Science Czar, Sudan Czar, TARP/Bailout Czar, Terrorism Czar, and Weapons Czar and, in Bunnypants' case, the Trailbike Czar, the Drugs 'n' Booze Czar, the Preztal Czar, the Poland Czar, and the No WMD Czar.
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This is beautiful: Federal judge appointed by Bush throws out stupid birther lawsuit, then slaps her AND her lawyer silly for even filing it.
Plaintiff, a Captain in the United States Army, seeks a temporary restraining order to prevent the Army from deploying her to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Plaintiff alleges that her deployment orders are unconstitutional and unenforceable because President Barack Obama is not constitutionally eligible to act as Commander in Chief of the United States armed forces. After conducting a hearing on Plaintiff's motion, the Court finds that Plaintiff's claims are frivolous. Accordingly, her application for a temporary restraining order is denied, and her Complaint is dismissed in its entirety. Furthermore, Plaintiff's counsel is hereby notified that the filing of any future actions in this Court, which are similarly frivolous, shall subject counsel to sanctions.
She has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as President of the United States. Instead, she uses her Complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric…
Acknowledging the existence of a document that shows the President was born in Hawaii, Plaintiff alleges that the document "cannot be verified as genuine, and should be presumed fraudulent."
Finally, in a remarkable shifting of the traditional legal burden of proof, Plaintiff unashamedly alleges that Defendant has the burden to prove his "natural born" status. Thus, Plaintiff's counsel, who champions herself as a defender of liberty and freedom, seeks to use the power of the judiciary to compel a citizen, albeit the President of the United States, to "prove his innocence" to "charges" that are based upon conjecture and speculation. Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning fundamental principles upon which our Country was founded in order to purportedly "protect and preserve" those very principles.
LOLOL. Lots more here.
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Rush (anal cyst) Limbaugh, who has an obsession with all things anal, calls President Carter "the national hemorrhoid."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/video/item/rush-limbaugh-calls-jimmy-carter-a-hemorrhoid/
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Olbermann: 37 racist incidents prove Carter is right: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09/17/olbermann-cites-37-racist-attacks-on-obama/
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