Unfortunately, I think he's right, dammit. Please read it.It's not the bill progressives hoped for. But it's the bill that can pass, now.
And here's what happens if a bill isn't passed now: Democrats lose seats — maybe a lot of seats — in the 2010 midterms. A weakened President Obama wins reelection, maybe - but even that isn't certain. No way he has the votes for another try at health care before 2015. Quite possibly, there isn't another chance until 2021.
Some people say that we should throw it away and start over; is this what they have in mind? Because that's the reality of what would happen.We can come back to this. Progressives can push for bigger subsidies; stronger exchanges; a reinstated public option; stronger cost controls. Some of these things can be done through reconciliation. Having this bill in place will make it easier, not harder, to do these things than having passed nothing.
I'm not happy — this is too flawed a bill for joy — but I am relieved (or will be once I'm sure that Joe Lieberman isn't going to pull a double-cross). You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.
Anybody else find it interesting that at the same time we're bombing Yemen and occupying Iraq, we lecture Iran about respecting the sovereignty of other nations?
That's the problem with doing evil shit -- you lose any moral high ground to lecture other people, and end up as that big-mouth asshole that nobody listens to.
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No matter how hard you paddled, you could not get past the fact that Tiger Woods's errant balls were everywhere.
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The bike stunts these two girls do are incredible.
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Happy Holidays from America's Banks
Never mind Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope. It's the audacity of the banks that takes your breath away. Mean old Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life seems like Father Christmas by comparison.
A recent report that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs may have received preferential treatment getting doses of the swine flu vaccine was enough to give Ebenezer Scrooge the yips. Then came news that in order for us to get back the taxpayer bailout money we loaned them, Citigroup is receiving billions of dollars in tax breaks from the IRS.
And there's a new study this week, "Rewarding Failure," from the public interest group Public Citizen, revealing that in the years leading up to the financial meltdown, the CEO's of the 10 Wall Street giants that either collapsed or got huge amounts of TARP money were paid an average of $28.9 million dollars a year.
Via the Wonk Room we learn that despite Ben Nelson's railing against the costs of Medicaid expansion, there's a little gift for him tucked into the new amendment to the health care bill:
Page 98 of the managers amendment specifically identifies Nebraska for higher federal matching funds, fully funding its expansion for an additional year:
"(3) Notwithstanding subsection (b) and paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subsection, the Federal medical assistance percentage otherwise determined under subsection (b) with respect to all or any portion of a fiscal year that begins on or after January 1, 2017, for the State of Nebraska, with respect to amounts expended for newly eligible individuals described in subclause (VIII) of section 1902(a)(10)(A)(i), shall be determined as provided for under subsection (y)(1) (A) (notwithstanding the period provided for in such paragraph)
Merry Christmas, Ben! It's always nice to know the price at which a senator will sell his vote, isn't it?
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The Real Meaning of Christmas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwXpZc8Y3cs&feature=player_embedded
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Oh, very nice.
And the Senate health care bill sacrifices women's rights. What a surprise, since women make up a lousy 17% of that "august" body.
In other words, states can opt-out of abortion coverage that goes beyond the Hyde amendment. A state may also repeal the prohibition and allow plans in the exchange to offer abortion coverage, so long as those procedures are financed with private premiums. The new managers amendment to the merged Senate bill incorporates Sen. Bob Casey's (D-PA) language strengthening the segregation of private and public funds and increasing federal support for adoptions, with a new provision that would allow states "to prohibit abortion coverage in qualified health plans offered through an Exchange in such State if such State enacts a law to provide for such prohibition" ...
Hey, Senate, this is what I think of your "Gilead, USA":
So women's rights don't count, but prayer does? ...
The Divine Referral: Christian scientists lobby for faith healing to be covered as part of the national health care plan
One of the provisions proposed for the current health care bill has received little attention in the media: mandatory coverage for faith healers. Christian Science advocates are pushing for the inclusion in the bill under a provision barring discrimination against religious based healing. They previously won support from both Republicans and Democrats for the astonishing provision that would require insurance companies to pay religious healers in the same way as radiologists.
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Sure, if you think the Earth was created 6,000 ago, then rapid climate change is the most natural thing evar. For the rest of us, not so much...
And no, "i" is nowhere near "e" on the keyboard. I suspect she was spelling phonetically.
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Swing it, hamster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxBJlxb3NAQ&feature=player_embedded
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America's decade of dread
This decade began and ended in dread. It began with Wall Street -- the World Trade Center -- targeted for mass murder. It ends with Main Street fearful and reeling from economic reverses that Wall Street helped create.
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Corruption As Standard Procedure (Updated)
When you buy somebody off to shut his mouth about some truth that may hurt your business, that's unethical and irredeemably shabby but it isn't illegal. When you buy off public officials and even whole countries in order to avoid consequences to your profits in defiance of the public good, that's called "corruption" and has been illegal since the time of the Babylonians. Which, as of today if not before, makes the Democrat party leaders - and President Obama directly - corrupt. Why?
Because the corrupt Democrat leadership bought off Ben Nelson's vote with a giant Medicaid payment for Nebraska only in order to get their shitful "reform" package, while President Obama bought off the entire Third World so polluting corporations could keep polluting.
http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/2009/12/corruption-as-standard-procedure.html
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Republicans are such nice people
At a hearing concerning domestic partner benefits, Republican Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James took a slightly different tact on the issue: referring to gays as if they were vermin. James spoke of the effort to "de-infest" areas where gays "congregate."
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What a neat scientific discovery. Yellowstone has a plume of molten rock extending 410 miles (yes, miles) into the earth. Read to see how they were able to map this discovery.
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4,371 soldiers killed in Iraq; 936 in Afghanistan.
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A credit card with 79.9% APR? And it is perfectly legal? Yes and yes. Issued by First Premier, a subprime issuer of plastic, the card carries some very pricey fees - $256 in the first year for a card that only has a $250 credit limit. In February, a new law kicks in and caps fees at 25% of the card's credit limit. Since the law thwarts them on the excessive fees front, they have upped the interest to 79.9%. Have they gotten egregious enough to bring back usury laws yet? And if not, what the fuck is it going to take?
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In a wide-ranging, televised discussion about the many months of American debate over health reform, Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi chided Democrats for pitching the "fallacy" that somehow a public health care option was simply out of reach.
His sharpest criticisms were saved for President Obama, who Taibbi chastised for not resorting to bare-knuckle negotiating in the public's good. http://rawstory.com/2009/12/taibbi-suggesting-dems-unable-public-option-is-fallacy/
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Obama heralds his unpopular compromised health care bill as 'significant progress', and called his little deal at the Copenhagen summit a "meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough." Because if there's one thing that is both full of meaning and totally without precedent, it's the world's nations agreeing to "take note" of a non-binding aspirational document with no targets or compliance oversight that even if adhered to wouldn't come close to averting global environmental catastrophe.
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The Carebear greets his base.
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TDW:
Tis the season to be silly at the National Physical Laboratory, where scientists have constructed the world's smallest snowman by shooting a focused ion beam at nano-scale tin beads used in the correction of electron microscope astigmatism. The final product measures a ridiculous 10 µm across — 1/5th the width of a human hair. Check out the making of here.
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No Idea What They Are Even Debating
It is just so depressing so many deeply stupid people are serving in Congress. Here is the latest:
Spending in health care is going to increase no matter what happens. It is going to increase at a completely unsustainable rate if we do nothing. Which is why we've been talking about reforming health care for the last couple of decades, and precisely why we've been talking about it intently for the last two. It is why we have been talking about "getting health care costs under control" for years. It is why Republicans, for all my lifetime, have been screaming that Medicaid and Medicare are going to bankrupt us- that is, until a couple of weeks ago when in an act of sheer political cynicism, the RNC and the Republicans decided to guarantee unlimited and unchecked Medicare benefits forever.
It is almost like these Republicans are so damned stupid they have no idea what the hell we are even debating. How are they supposed to have a coherent response or be constructive participants if they can't even figure out the debate?
And that is Tom Price, the Chairman of the Republican Study Committee. The Republican "think tank" in Congress.
And it is "Democratic," you silly ponce.
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An 18-year-old man was busted for having sex with horses at a Hudson Valley harness track, authorities said Friday.
Have we not seen a lot of this in 2009? When will this decade end?
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Projections put whites in the minority by 2050.
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The liberal media
CSPAN footage of McCain denying Dem Senator extra time in debate blacked out.
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Happy Christmas - war is over if you want: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDm6RNQ5e-0
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Millions of D.C.'s hippest Twitterers coordinated a massive cross-street snowball fight at the major intersection of U & 14th streets NW yesterday, to regale in the fruits of God's most terrifying thundersnowstorm from Hell. A victory for spontaneous social network organizing! Or not? Because at some point during this apocalyptic spectacle, a frustrated undercover cop was trying to navigate his car down the barely plowed U Street, only to reach the masses of unhinged Twitter Snowballers. This didn't make his drive any easier. And then a few of them pegged his car with snowballs, leading to the worst massacre in human history. MORE »
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Popular, beloved hockey mom given the heave-ho
Why do Canadians hate hockey?
Sarah Palin is booted from her scheduled $200,000 speech at a Canadian socialist hospital fundraiser following a huge backlash.
The dumbasses at the Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation received about 60 angry calls and e-mails from residents since the event was announced last week. About 10 people said they would not be donating to any event in which Palin has a role.WTF were they thinking? Morons.
Palin is an out-spoken conservative critic of new public health care plans in the U.S. and is scornful of Canada's universal health care system.
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The Glenn Beck family Christmas card, via BuzzFlash:
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Show Us the E-Mail - By ELIOT SPITZER, FRANK PARTNOY and WILLIAM BLACK
The three of us, as experienced investigators and prosecutors of financial fraud, cannot answer these questions now. But we know where the answers are. They are in the trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in the key internal accounting documents and financial models generated by A.I.G. during the past decade. Before releasing its regulatory clutches, the government should insist that the company immediately make these materials public. By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of "open source" investigation.
Keep reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/opinion/20partnoy.html?hp
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