Obstruction

Republication Senator places "blanket hold" to stop 70 nominations, endangering the nation.

Too Important To Ignore

Health care reform has been watered down to nearly uselessness in my opinion, but there's hope. Kaiser Health News examines the costs for an average family if the bill doesn't pass versus if it doesn't pass. Look at their chart that breaks the costs down for average earners.

So, no, the reform is definitely not what I, and many others, wanted. But it's better than nothing.

Regressive Taxing?

Sales taxes apparently punish the poor far more than an income tax. Who knew? I like not having to do a state income tax, but when you consider what it's doing to us... well. I'd support replacing our sales tax with an income tax, but only if the state constitution is amended to outlaw sales tax as long as there is a state income tax. One or the other, never both. Because if we have both the structure will get abused.

Via HA.

Colbert Tackles Washington State

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Dear Nobel Committee

Although Obama is no doubt a great guy, and has made a lot of promises, he hasn't actually had time to do anything yet. Your decision to give him the Nobel Peace Prize is incomprehensible. You have not done him any favors with this honor, and in fact may have damaged his ability to accomplish what you want him to do.

I understand that the Nobel Peace Prize is all about Hope and not reality, but seriously, Obama has been in office less than a year.

Someday I hope Obama lives up to your award, but I think giving it to him now was premature. The man is trying to nudge a behemoth. Giving him more controversy just isn't going to help.

Olbermann On His Father and Health Care

Transcript and Video (first of five parts).

If you don't know, Olbermann has been missing a LOT of his shows recently. It's been due to his father's illness, and so he's been in the hospital pretty much constantly for the last couple of months.

Now, I don't agree with Olbermann on everything, and think he can be terribly shrill at times, but when he speaks from the heart he's worth listening to. And this was a full episode of him speaking from the heart about health care and his father.

I recommend the transcript, but if you've never seen Olbermann in his from-the-heart mode I suggest watching at least a few moments of the videos.

Olympics Cheers and Jeers

Ok, I admit I was rooting for Rio to win the Olympic games, mostly because South America has never had the Olympics before. But I would not have been upset if Chicago had gotten the Games. So when I learned that Chicago was out of the running I was a little disappointed, but when Rio won the bid I was happy.

What I don't understand is these morons on the political right who literally cheered when Chicago lost. Why do they hate America so much?

Oh, I know they think they are cheering because they tie the Olympics in with Obama, despite the fact that every other head of state from the countries with a bid also showed up, but they are still CHEERING AGAINST AMERICA. And Obama had very little to do with the bid. It was started during the Bush administration, with his blessings. So they are also cheering against Bush. I just don't understand these people. Seriously, why do they hate their own country so much?

SNL Opening

The bit right up to the "Live from New York" announcement is the fun part. I particularly like the Food Network interview. Although the Glenn Beck parody was so spot on it was scary. (If you can't view it here, you should be able to click and view it at NBC's site).

Mild Pet Peeve

I've been seeing these ads against a tax on soda pop. An actress playing a concerned mother tells the audience how hard it is to feed her family, and that we should contact Congress to tell them not to tax juice and soda.

Here's the peeve. Soda is a luxury item. It is not healthy, and a person trying to feed their family with "pennies" would not buy it. They would drink water instead. To argue against this tax from that angle strikes me as utterly stupid.

Not that I think a soda tax is a good idea. I think there are a few million better ways to raise money. But I get really peeved at the idea that soda pop is something that a responsible mom would be buying for her children as a necessity.

If she'd stuck to talking about fruit juice, the ad wouldn't bother me so much... but soda? Totally not needed for a healthy family. Frankly, the ad makes me think that maybe the tax is a good idea after all.

Free Speech Means Responsibility

This is from a speech. Before you look at the date, try to figure out who is talking and when:

In this country we cherish and guard the right of free speech. We know we love it when we put up with people saying things we absolutely deplore. And we must always be willing to defend their right to say things we deplore to the ultimate degree. But we hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable. You ought to see -- I'm sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today.

Well, people like that who want to share our freedoms must know that their bitter words can have consequences and that freedom has endured in this country for more than two centuries because it was coupled with an enormous sense of responsibility on the part of the American people.

If we are to have freedom to speak, freedom to assemble, and, yes, the freedom to bear arms, we must have responsibility as well. And to those of us who do not agree with the purveyors of hatred and division, with the promoters of paranoia, I remind you that we have freedom of speech, too, and we have responsibilities, too. And some of us have not discharged our responsibilities. It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.

If they insist on being irresponsible with our common liberties, then we must be all the more responsible with our liberties. When they talk of hatred, we must stand against them. When they talk of violence, we must stand against them. When they say things that are irresponsible, that may have egregious consequences, we must call them on it. The exercise of their freedom of speech makes our silence all the more unforgivable. So exercise yours, my fellow Americans. Our country, our future, our way of life is at stake.

-William J Clinton, April 24, 1995

Un-freaking-believable

Beck's Teabaggers complain about DC Metro. The Tea-Beckers, who claim they went to Washington DC to complain about being taxed to pay for healthcare, are complaining that the DC Metro wasn't good enough for them. These people, who don't want any social services, are complaining because some of them had to take a *gasp* taxi to the protest! They had to pay for PRIVATE service. The government didn't just automatically take care of them! How horrible that the government that they hate and are protesting against (with their incredibly racist and often misspelled signs) isn't giving them a ride to their protest against the government!

If You Are Rude, You Get Pwned

Rep Wilson, who shouted a provable falsehood at Obama during Obama's speech, has an opponent waiting in SC. Rob Miller is an Iraq War Veteran who almost defeated Wilson last time despite having 1/4 of the money. He decided to run again, and after Wilson's outburst people decided to donate to Miller to get Wilson out of office. As of this writing, Rob Miller has gotten over $400,000 in on-line contributions since Wilson's rudeness.

We're talking about nearly a half million dollars in campaign contributions in less than a day.

My Health Care Reform Plan

My plan is simple, which is why it will never be adopted. It's also by a person who understand the whole issue as a regular person, which is why it probably wouldn't work.

1) Allow anyone to buy into Medicare. Set prices based on costs, and use the clout of Medicare to keep costs reasonable (but not artificially low). Do not force anyone into Medicare, but make it a choice for everyone.

2) Don't force everyone to buy insurance. With one caveat. If you are able to afford insurance but choose not to buy it, you must pay for any and all health care you need by yourself. So if you refuse to buy catastrophic insurance (even though you can afford it) because you think you are invincible, then you darn well better be invincible. If you go into debt to pay off health care bills after you refused health care insurance you could afford, tough luck.

3) Pass a law that if a person dies due to insurance companies refusing coverage (and this needs to be well documented by more than one doctor, not based on a single opinion) then the insurance company is fined $1,000,000,000 with the majority of that going to the survivors. A petty sum for a priceless life, but maybe after paying a few billion for negligence, insurance companies won't deny critical coverage any more. As an alternative, I would favor murder charges against the person/people who made the decision to deny coverage.

I can see lots of flaw with my plan, but I bet any politician worth their salt could fix the loopholes and make it work. The crucial part of my plan is point 1, I could give up 2 & 3 if I had to.

The key is allowing people to have a choice between a single-payer system (Medicare) and private insurance. People will vote with their feet, and move from Medicare if it is crappy, or to Medicare if private insurance is crappy.

Right now, most people have the choice between an over-priced private insurance that will drop them like a hot potato if they actually get sick and... an over-priced private insurance that will deny them coverage based on loopholes and fine print if they get sick.

We Already Have 'Death Panels'

As Crooks and Liars points out:

You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.

The Insurance Industry

The insurance industry is spending over $1.4M each DAY to defeat the public option.

Imagine if they spent that money on actually healing people.

And now you know why we need a public option.