Would there be anything at all left of the public option, even with a trigger, or would adults above 150% federal poverty level and below the age of 55 be confined to the exchange? Would anyone 55-64 with employer coverage be eligible (Probably not)? What would the impact of taking higher-risk individuals off the exchanges have on their prices? Would the exchanges serve so many less people as a result, however, that their collective bargaining power would be blunted? Would the rates for Medicare buy-in be too exorbitant for potential subscribers? How would states be affected by expanded Medicaid funding over time? Would the feds still carry the full cost of expansion in the first three years, now that the expansion is larger? Would the issue of provider reimbursement rates, a major sticking point during the Medicare + 5% conversation, rear its ugly head again?
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AIG executives need to re-read "A Christmas Carol" -- and pay special attention to the end: http://firedoglake.com/2009/12/07/late-night-im-dreaming-of-a-whine-christmas/
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US Bishops dictate the language to be used in Nelson Amendement
The US Catholic Bishops act like most women in the US use abortion as a means of birth control. Furthermore no one was trying to get the government to fund abortions in the first place contrary to what certain congresscritters are saying. And what about separation of church and state? Why is the Catholic church tax exempt? Why are there so many evil white men making laws governing women's bodies? Why am I so filled with hatred for our legislators during the season of 'peace on earth good will to all'? In fact, I am furious at everything going on in Washington. Nice way to say thanks to the American taxpayers, shitheads in DC.
There's a great commentary by Carol Marin in the Chicago Sun Times.
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Weep for the future
Undergraduate research paper quote of the century: "An Asiatic voter is not like a Mexican; the majority of Asians accel in math and science."
This is the future, America. Your future.
And so is this:
More Americans believe in Angels than believe in climate change.
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The irrefutable stupidity of Sarah Palin: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/25363
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Obama the mortal - Dana Milbank
Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet.
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Tiger beats Mother-in-law with sand wedge
Police called to mansion again, she's in stable condition
Excerpt:
Tiger Woods' mother-in-law was rushed to hospital in the early hours of this morning.
Blonde (Why is her hair color important?) Barbro Holmberg was taken by ambulance to Florida's Health Central Hospital.
She had initially refused to go, according to reports. A report claimed another blonde woman, that may have been Woods' wife Elin, was seen following the ambulance in a black Escalade Cadillac.
Poor Tiger - under so much pressure - he must've lashed out.
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Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee..
Another day, another pronouncement from the Senate's leading drama queen:
After his abortion amendment did not win the day on the Senate floor, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) did not come out swinging. Though he insisted that the failure of his abortion amendment "makes it harder to be supportive" of Senate health care bill, he did not reiterate his pledge to filibuster the bill."We'll just have to see what develops," Nelson told reporters. "I have no plan B."
And no one else would have Plan B or any other control over their own reproductive system if you got your way, you showboating cretin. Does he even know what party he is in? Has he ever even looked at his party's platform? Do he and Stupak honestly think that a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House and a Democratic President are going to reel in abortion rights? How stupid are these people?
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Abortion, healthcare reform, and self-destructive idiocy
Larry Sinclair
Candidate for Congress
Florida 24th District
Dear Mr. Sinclair,
You should consider retiring your slogan, "I have served my time, now it's time I serve my Country." Felony convictions and prison time are not the kind of thing that motivates the average person to support a candidate. You need to find something else upon which to base your campaign.
Sure, you'll have to address your criminal history--your opponents and the media will demand it--but you must do it in the right way. Rather than arguing whether you served 11 or 16 years, you should be stressing the more patriotic aspects of the crime. You're not a check forger and a thief, you're an uber-traditional capitalist like the contractors at Halliburton, the derivative traders at Goldman-Sachs, and the La Cosa Nostra's loan officers. Respond to inquiries about your criminal record accordingly, by loudly declaring the questioner to be a god-denying socialist.
As for the slogan, you're a celebrity and you should take advantage of that. I mean, hey, you're known for your claim that Obama put his manly source of white insecurity into your mouth--capitalize on that. Make it work for you. Imagine the support you would receive from the birther-American community if you declared, "Obama tasted like a Kenyan!"
That's the basis of your new slogan: "Larry Sinclair: The Only Man Who Can Testify That Obama Tastes Like A Kenyan."
Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
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Some people in Asheville, North Carolina are up in arms about a man just elected to the city council. No he is not corrupt or an adulterer. Those are virtually qualifications in today's politics. The problem is not what Cecil Bothwell is but what he is not: God-fearing. Opponents are opposing his election on the basis of a provision of the North Carolina Constitution that bars atheists from public office. One is the former head of the NAACP. It is clearly unconstitutional and would make for a wonderful (and educational) challenge for North Carolina.
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Do they really know how dishonest they are?
Tim Lambert of Deltoid is discussing a book about climate denialism on FDL. I quite enjoyed his putdown of the ubiquitous Viscount Monckton, and also this familiar joke:
Question: What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman?
Answer: A used car salesman knows when he's lying.
The point he's making is that there are two broad categories of denialists, the ones who are sincerely nuts (like Monckton) and the ones know better but are lying to make a profit for their cause (like the odious Steve Milloy).
I wish I could make that distinction in my personal choice of targets in the denialist clan, the creationists. I think they are all, as far as I know, personally convinced of the truth of their position and are entirely sincere. That even goes for the most reprehensibly dishonest 'scholar' of the bunch, Jonathan Wells, who got a Ph.D. in developmental biology and should know better…but everything I've read by him has led me to the conclusion that he is also profoundly stupid. He makes the errors he does because he wants to, but also because he floated through a degree program without ever thinking or learning anything.
That's the catch with the religious motivation: it couples evangelism with willful ignorance so efficiently that you can't really separate the tangle and assign intent to their misrepresentations.
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The Independent: Blair informed Iraq had been disarmed, still invaded.
And this:
The story only gets worse by the day. Tony Blair and the US Republicans worked everyone into a frenzy over the "45 minutes and we could all die" story and now we see just how ridiculous it really was. How are these people not prosecuted for abusing their power and terrorizing everyone with their lies?
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If you thought getting through security in the airport was a pain in the ass before, wait:
Reporting from Washington - The Transportation Security Administration is investigating a breach in which a manual detailing sensitive airport screening procedures appeared on a government website, officials said Tuesday.
Wikileaks has the full document and so do other sunshine websites. Bet you didn't know that governors, lieutenant governors, the Mayor of DC and their spouses get a free pass through airport security when they have their police escort with them. Foreign dignitaries get a free pass through airport security, as well.
Ass-covering will begin shortly. Expect mandatory cavity searches for everyone ...
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The WaPo has publiched a Sarah Palin op-ed on global warming:
Climate-gate," as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle—the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won't change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worse.
[....]
Without trustworthy science and with so much at stake, Americans should be wary about what comes out of this politicized conference. The president should boycott Copenhagen.
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Look how these petulant over-grown kids act in the minority:
In September, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) had noticed Republicans House lawmakers intentionally forgetting or losing their voting cards in order to delay votes. Starting late in the summer, Grayson said he saw 60-70 GOP congressmen engaging in this tactic:
GRAYSON: They'd all walk to the front of the House and, laughingly and jokingly, put their arms around each other's shoulder like it was some kind of clownish fun. And they did this over and over to make sure every vote took half an hour. That's how low things have gotten. I could give you countless examples just like that. They're simply obstructionists and there's nothing you can do about it.
I really don't know how this country is supposed to operate when one of the two political parties is composed almost entirely of crazy assholes. The entire party has gone wingnut.
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Probably a good idea
A neo-Nazi gang member went on trial for murder Monday with his swastika and other tattoos covered by makeup on the order of a Florida judge who thought they could prejudice jurors.
There is another point to be made, however, and it speaks right to the Wingnuts' idea that those who are followers of the Prophet Muhammed can be crushed by military force alone: We crushed Nazi Germany. The leaders of the Nazi Party were, for the most part, all killed, whether before the war (the Night of the Long Knives), during the war or afterwards. Many killed themselves, others died in revenge killings or by hanging. The Nazi ideology was thoroughly discredited.
Yet the Nazi ideology, Nazi hate, survived. There are neo-Nazis in most every nation where Caucasians live. There are Nazis in Russia and even in Israel. The combined might of the Allies, tens of millions of soldiers, were not able to stamp out the Nazi ideology.
What makes the Wingnuts think they can stamp out a religion?
The public option is officially dead. And so yet another campaign promise of the Carebear's falls into the "Not Done and Ain't Gonna Happen" column. I cannot say that I'm surprised — I'm disappointed, of course, but not surprised.
As noted before, this is the 8th term of Ronald Reagan.
UPDATE 1: TPM says maybe it's not dead. Yet.
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There's people dumber than dirt...
…and then there's Ben Nelson.
Yes, Ben Nelson the senator from someplace called "North Dakota" (ha ha – that's a good one! Is there a "South Dakota" too? *Snicker* ) has formally introduced legislation to finance the wars through selling War Bonds.
I believe that we need shared sacrifice and fiscal discipline in financing the war effort. I don't believe our first instinct should always be a rush to tax. The government has gone to great lengths to address the economic downturn and adding new taxes right now could undermine those efforts.
OK, Ben Nelson of "North Dakota" here's the dealio about bonds: they have to be paid back, with interest, by the Federal government; bonds are essentially debt. And guess how the government gets the money to pay the bonds back? Taxes.
MPS salutes you, Ben Nelson of "North Dakota" for introducing legislation for the US Government to take on $30 Billion dollars in new debt! You are a credit to your profession.
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Just to be fair, I'll say here that I believe Hillary Clinton would probably do the same thing. But she's not the constitutional law professor who was supposed to fix all this, was she?
(12-07) 11:33 PST SAN FRANCISCO — The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.
Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose "the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military's detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict," Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
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The consequences of global warming - from A to Z: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/08/copenhagen-a-to-z/
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Orrin Hatch has a song about the famous Mormon Holiday, Hanukkah: http://wonkette.com/412610/orrin-hatch-has-a-song-about-the-famous-mormon-holiday-hanukkah
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Butt-licking contractors fired, from Afghanistan: http://wonkette.com/412606/butt-licking-contractors-fired-from-afghanistan
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Giving back to her fans
The Average Hockey Mom and her entourage charge peons for pics.
Crowds of dumb, deluded zekes, silently dribbling in the cold at American Quitter tour stops, have been told that no personal photos with Mooselini will be allowed. Instead, they must use the Palin camp's personal photographer, who will take pictures and then sell them to the fans.
The fraudulent activist hippies of the United Nations say planet getting hotter, is more than 6000 years old.
This decade is very likely to be the warmest since record keeping began in 1850, and 2009 could rank among the top-five warmest years, the U.N. weather agency reported Tuesday.But come on, who are you going to believe? The UN, the World Meteorological Organization, NOAA, GISS, NASA, and the UK Met Office, or Sean Hannity?
This week's Top 10 Conservative Idiots is a sleighful of win.
