Petraeus and Joe? Someone better tell Michele Bachmann.

Morning PW,

thanks for the linkfest!
I’m a Sherrod fan, and I like his wife a lot, too. I’d be proud to have him as my Senator
(take my Specter …please.)

If Obama can stand up and strongly defend the public option the General and the beedie eyed country bumpkin from Alabami will both be dead in the water! Betrayus is a weasel and Scarborough couldn’t even handle a civil debate on tv with Rachel Maddow. She ate his face, he lost his temper and when the commerical break was over, Joe Joe was gone!

Wait. I thought the ticket was going to be Bachmann – Palin (or vice versa). They’re gonna be pissed.

On a completely different note, I just ran across this site. A trip down memory lane. We all need some respite.

http://www.tropicalglen.com/index.html

Speaking for myself, I was wrapped way too tight yesterday. I’m sure that fact was reflected in the comments I posted on this site. I’m certainly not making excuses, but I do apologize for such outbursts. Sometimes the Wingnut (and Troll) Factor is just more than I can assimilate. Takeaway for me? Don’t feed trolls, however much I might be compelled to do so.

Scarborough? Running? For President?????????????????

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh, Jeez. I love it. Keep hearing about Obama’s poll numbers taking a turn south and that’s certainly not good. But then i look at who’s waiting in the wings on the other side. Palin, Huckelberry, Bachman, Scarborough. God. Draft Fred Thompson. Again.

The 2012 President will be Sarah Palin in a walk.

2010 would be even better.

Mornin’, PW.

No fair usin’ the pic without the clip. Best commercial evah.

Betrayus and Scarborough. Yeppurs. Next thing ya know the Rethugs will dig St Ronnie of RayGuns up and run him and Bachmann.

I get that way but had to knuckle down and just ignore ‘em. Just my nature to call these motherfuckers out but really serves no useful purpose.

I hadn’t seen the Scarborough story before. Interesting.

Thanks much. I keep working at it…

No fair usin’ the pic without the clip. Best commercial evah.

Great stuff! I have two cats. I can relate…

Bill Moyers kicked Obama’s ass up around his collarbone on Moyers’ Journal last night. Moyers was pissed at Obama for not promoting single payer type insurance and rightly so. It’s about time TeeVee people cut to the chase and tell Obama how it is in the real world.

Don’t sweat it. I missed your comments but sometimes a troll needs somebody to bite off their finger or something. Figurativley speaking. I am not and do not advocate violence. I’ve been lurking, not commenting, lately and am kinda concerned what might come out of me – ’specially if a troll shows up.

Know what’s got me really, really pissed to no end? Being patted on the head and told day after day “c’mon naive progressive. don’t you understand that the Prseident needs something? It makes no sense efor you to be so hung up on this public option thing. You’re only going to hurt the people you say you want to help.”
AAAARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’d rather hear Rahm call me “fucking stupid” than that condescending bullshit. At least if Rahm calls me “fucking stupid” I’m on terrain where i’m somewhat comfortable and can reply without hesitation “Go fuck yourself, ya fucking asshole!”

Mornin’ Phoenix Woman and Firedogs,

the Media Matters kidz got it right, these people defy caricature. if POTUS wanted to talk about planting trees, these people would hand their kids matches and a gasoline can

Palin/Cheney 2012…! ;-)

Hey. SoDrag, our alternatiev paper here in the City Beautiful had this to sday about Bill “Lost in Space” Nelson:

We do expect more from Bill Nelson. And we ain’t getting it. If the late Massachusetts senator was a lion, then Florida’s senior senator is a mangy housecat, scampering under the couch at the first sign of trouble. This is a man who needs three pills and a cup of coffee to move four inches. Other than his brief trip into orbit two decades ago, Nelson has done nothing to distinguish himself.

And there Nelson was last week – the very day Kennedy slipped this mortal coil – once again exemplifying what a tepid, pathetic excuse for a Democrat he is. In front of a gathering of hoity-toities and Tiger Bay types, Nelson, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, announced that he wanted a slow-going, “incremental” approach to health care – rather than, you know, the kind of reform that actually does anything.

Nelson says it’ll just be too gosh-darned hard to pass laws that matter, so you poor uninsured people should just be patient. And try not to get sick.

The country’s biggest reforms – Medicare, Social Security, civil rights – didn’t come easy. They required men of courage and stature to put themselves on the line to move this country forward. Men like Ted Kennedy. You, senator, are no Ted Kennedy.

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/c…..p?id=13418

Expect the worst imaginable acts from conservative fascists and you will not be dissappointed.

Last night someone suggested Palin/Bachmann which I thought would be waaaaay too much fun.

Ever since the election the rethugs have been on a inanity/insanity binge and that is guiding what the media is talking about. We have spoken a lot about the spineless Reid but the media is suffering from the same affliction. Is there something in the water.

Palin says “they” want to make sure the first woman president comes from the Democrat party and that;s why “they” pick on her & poor Sarah.

Looking forward to the Palin presidency- two brainless gooper presidents in such close proximity should really be good for America.

my overlooked fave from the same Super Bowl

Obama’s mantle…let’s fight fire with bipartisanship..it’s all we got.

“Fox Won’t Broadcast Obama Speech To Congress”.

One side takes what should be a simple presidential pep talk and aggrandizes it into a “historic moment,” and sends out a “menu of classroom” activities so teachers across America can bring home the president’s message. The other side wraps itself in the flag and accuses the president of trying to brainwash American kids and create a “cult personality,” as un-American as Mao or Saddam.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/

What is it about conservative heroes and education?

Rush- community college dropout

Beck- Dropped out of college after half a semester

Hannity- dropped out of NYU.

Interesting isn’t it.

Goopers now lead only in the old, white, and uneducated demographic- and their politicians are doing a great job of aiming at that sweet spot.

THE BASE!!!

Old, white , and dumber than dirt.

That kid should ba able to get out after he looses 20 or 30 pounds.

Well, Gemini just shuttered their laser… Time for me to head home…! It was a gorgeous nite up here with the full moon and no wind… It’s looking like it’ll be a beautiful dawn too…!

Goopers convinced that the next election will be decided by senile droolers in wheelchairs. That’s the group they are targeting.

Lets keep the kids out of school until we can have a Texass curiculum.

Thanks for this.

A thing of beauty.

I’m surprised at that. I mean that Hannity even got IN to NYU. That surprises me. The rest doesn’t surprise me.

FOX blows

An affirmative action moved aimed at increasing the student population of blithering idiots I suppose?

Can’t think of anything else. And he didn’t take advatage of the hand-up?

I hear you. Much appreciated.

Bill Moyers Special Comment calls out Obama to stop being Mr. Nice Guy. The clip can be seen at this dkos diary or at UTube. Don’t Miss It
It Should be on the front page here and on every Liberal Blog out there.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…..-fighter.-

When you look at the people screaming at these town halls you notice that they are likely – in their everyday
lives – ordinary folks who do ordinary things. They are older and probably have grandchildren. Most likely they never scream and yell at home and likely go to church. I think we will be discussing the psychology of this for years to come.

Exactly. All that “evolution” crap. And gravity? That ain’t been proven yet…

therein lies the problem. The base of the un- and under-educated is vast and growing. 35% of young men between 20-24 are now unemployed by some reports. Lots of prime recruiting fodder for the next generation of orcs and half-orcs.

Nice job, Senator Brown. Now put some teeth in those fine words and take the pledge. Otherwise it’s just kabuki.

What’s wrong with Kabuki? I hear it’s very popular in Japan … oh never mind.

I think it’s because they think they know it all….who indeed can learn them anything….+ both Sean and Rush have some sort of hyperactivity/impulse control disorder in my VHO

It’s fascinating actually.

I play golf at a club mostly populated with seniors. They are mostly livid about Obama. They circulate e-mails claiming outlandish stuff- such as that there’s a bill that just passed the senate that will require everyone to list every gun they own on their next year’s tax return. Every one of these e-mails is an obvious and deliberate lie. They are not written by the people who spread em- they come from somewhere else- and the idiots mostly believe them without checking anything. Amazing.

There’s a great opportunity for someone to blow the lid off these e-mails. They are the goop’s new weapon of mass destruction- and it wouldn’t be surprising to discover that they originate in some gooper think tank.

The future of America will not be run by the ignorant offspring of the toothless banjo players who’s parents were clearly brother and sister. They’ll simply be the one’s to come in and mop up after the educated have gone home! Work it Cooter, Ceephus, and Uncle Nub!

it wouldn’t be surprising to discover that they originate in some gooper think stink tank.

Fixed it for ya

The GOP would have an uphill battle getting Scarborough elected. There are thousands of hours of video footage that would sink him.

“..both Sean and Rush have some sort of hyperactivity/impulse control disorder in my VHO…”

I’m sure their health plans cover the type of meds they so obviously require. (Beck? Anti-psychotic, probably intravenous…)

If what we get is:
- A new direct-to-corporate gouging tax in the form of being forced to buy useless junk insurance that covers almost nothing and has high deductibles & copays for what little it does
- No real reform on arbitrary rejections, network restrictions, ‘reasonable and customary’ charges, and all the other ways these companies have found to screw us
- No relief on the already obscene premiums
- No public option

Let’s just say that I and many others will apparently be too busy working crappy, under-regulated and underpaid jobs to do any more work and pavement pounding on the behalf of a political party that really doesn’t give a damn about the people who elect them. Or, if we’re sick, selling everything we own and filing for bankruptcy.

That, or being in prison for refusing to pay the no-insurance fine. I’d rather have nothing than the abomination coming down the road. There are some things worse than no reform at all — and it’s looking damned like that’s what they’re about to serve us.

Hmm- interesting idea…would make sense.

“…and the idiots mostly believe them without checking anything. Amazing….”

Facts, Schmacts. Who needs ‘em?

KO was in on an ass-kickin’ roll on this last night, too. And from some of his regular guests this week, it seems as though, at least in some quarters, the conventional wisdom is starting to align with a more pro-PublicOption viewpoint.
Here’s hoping there’s still time for that to take hold.

Good Morning, PW, Good morning, Pups!

FunnyWheelieDiva

C’mon now. Squeal like a pig…

What’s really annoying is when people like Tweetie keep saying that Obama is losing the Seniors. He lost the oldster vote by EIGHT POINTS! You can’t lose what you never had. Further, if your base consists of ignorant geezers with 1 foot in the grave, it’s your party that has the problem. There is no diversity in the GOP. Only tokenism. The very people they need are the same people they allow their base to demonize. Good Job! At this rate these folks are going to end up like the American Indians in terms of their size. This is clearly what they are most afraid of and powerless to stop! As minorities become the majority it’s scaring the shit out of the wingnuts. That’s probably my favorite part!

The correct solution, in my opinion, is to give every american a stipped down version of medicare that covers catastrophic cases. Private insurers would be free to sell wrap around coverage, or substitute coverage as they do with medicare. That would put the most expenive high dollar medical cases in the govt. portfolio and give them plenty of leverage to negotiate rates down for those situations that make up the bulk of health care expense anyway..

That’s where this needs to go- and anything that isn’t at least a bridge in that direction is probably a mistake. The question is whether it’s politically possible to get from here to there in our lifetimes- and what the necessary steps are to make it happen. Sure ain’t gonna happen this year.

I was thinking some sort of oppositional defiant disorder. They are so divorced from reality and the plight of everyday Americans it’s astonishing really.

The changes are going to be huge and it does scare the wingnuts. I also think that seniors are battling not only fear of losing what they have but they are no longer employed, their children don’t need them any more and they feel irrelevant. So they try to take control of something – almost anything that will make them feel important again.

I agreed with what KO said on Thursday night…if Obama doesn’t support a strong public option, Progressives and Liberals will withdraw their support and go about finding a challenger for 2012. We’ve already given up enough. This is the last straw. I hope that the Progressive Caucus holds it’s ground on this. I don’t understand how the whitehouse could even consider caving this way. It will embolden the GOP to fight every other piece of legislation in this same matter to water it down or ultimately defeat it. This had better be the biggest bluff in poltical history or President Obama will be! Just who the hell won the 2008 election by the widest margin in history?

Good morning firepups.

And the think tankers have got to be howling at the folks who do their dirty work. They must be amazed at how many idiots will work this hard against their own interests.

I could be supportive of something like that if there is an S.702-style national network of community clinics and hospitals (for the whole country, not just rural areas) that’ll provide routine basic services on demand combined with a national corps of government-salaried practitioners. And a means-qualified system for covering hospital costs and the cost of expensive procedures.

Costs are the key to the whole thing. The current system is a ticking time bomb. Optimistically it will remain economically viable for another 8 to 15 years, if underlying service and drug unit costs don’t start growing at an even faster rate. No system can be this wasteful and bloated and survive indefinitely.

I’m glad that many of us recognize that without a public option, the administration will be forcing us all to buy insurance from the same industry that has been screwing us for years. I’m glad they know that we’re aware of this because they have to know that we’ll plow them with ads if necessary to remind everyone that this IS NOT A CHOICE! The public option is. The fact that it cuts the cost of reform by 400 billion dollars has clearly been lost on the “media” What a joke these people are!

Why a ’stripped down version of Medicare’? Why not simply let people buy into Medicare itself, regardless of age, with subsidies for those who are too poor to afford even that much?

We spend TWICE what other modern countries do — and somehow they manage to cover every single one of their citizens and legal residents…and some of them throw in free coverage for visiting foreigner tourists, just because it’s the humane thing to do.

We really need to stop acting like universal medical care for all is an unattainable luxury. It isn’t. Other nations have proven it’s completely affordable — and if we weren’t such idiots about worshiping the ‘Free Market’ we’d learn we needn’t be paying these extortionists as much as we have been.

For the last six and a half years, we’ve been throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at wars, with nary a question about funding them through increased taxes. Last autumn, our government rushed through trillion dollar bailouts. Now, the most modest proposals would cost a fraction of that — and suddenly we can’t afford it. Or we spend all our time finding ways to cut the proposals, deciding that this class of people or that type of treatment isn’t worthy of coverage. Can we honestly look some kid in the face, one with a dozen cavities and rotting gums, and tell her she doesn’t rate dental care because her Mom & Dad can’t afford it? Or tell the diabetic, “Sorry, no insulin or dietary help for you — come to the emergency room when you’re going blind, your kidneys have shut down, and your foot has gone gangrenous”?

Y’know what’s really wrong with us as a people? We Americans? We’ve lost all our empathy. We’ve become consumed with fear, hating, and xenophobia.

The world war 2 generation is almost gone.. today’s 80 year olds were born in about 1929. They lived through the depression but didn’t experience it. The war was over by the time they were 16 years old. Their formative years were the late forties and early fifties. They were the children of the McCarthy era. They didn’t experience open homosexuality, or racial equality during those years. They saw movies where men and women couldn’t be shown in the same bed (even if married). They were taught not to say “shit” even if their mouths were full of it.

They’re REALLY pissed off- but the next generation of oldsters are hippies.

If the public option is an option, then why don’t the wingnuts who don’t want it realize that they don’t have to buy it? This is how stupid they are. However, a mandate to purhase insurance from the case whoring insurance industry is somehow going to sound better to us?

Bachmann seems to think that it’s some big conspiracy to thwart God’s plan to make her President…but her statement also suggested that God also wanted Sarah. So presumably the devil is behind the conspircy, since no mere mortal would ever have shot at stoppin’ the heavenly hordes.

Maybe she should stroll over her to FDL…seems that I see a lot of support for a Bachmann-Turner Palin Overdrive ticket in 20l2 ;-)

Speakin’ of right-wing televangelist types steppin’ into the brimstone lakes of hell…nyone see that Tom Ridge is scheduled to be here at FDL at 5PM talkin’ about his new book????

And include Laura Ingraham in the group…Not sure what to call her; maybe old fashion mean.

Sorry, that’s cash whoring! And yes, let’s hear it for hippies!

Because IMO it’s all about defeating Barack Obama at any cost. You’re talking about people who have consistently voted against their own interests for their entire lifetime.

True ’nuff.

Oh, I almost feel sorry for the guy. 5PM Pacific?

After the Rachel Maddow experience, I’m amazed that Ridge can even show his face in public ever again. That was priceless!

To keep the costs down.

‘Cept these folks will likely be cut off of or won’t be able to afford their private insurance plans…thank God for Medicare [note that the straw the Republicans are throwing out for these folks to grasp is that THEY are going to PROTECT Medicare}.

Yes, so why doesn’t Obama see that caving in anyway to this tiny party will have that very effect of taking him down. Next time around they’ll be even more irrational if that’s possible. The only way to deal with ignorance is to smash it over the head with a shovel….so to speak. Drop the hammer on these bastards and remind them what it’s like to be the minority party. It means you lose and lose badly!

Rumored that he wants to run for prez. That should bore the country into a coma.

I put up a preview for the Ridge Book Salon so we can all get up to speed.
It has links to the Maddow interview for those who didn’t get to see it, if anything at least watch Part One and read Christy’s own preview post.

Because the math doesn’t work. Over two decades, the underlying service and drug costs under Medicare have almost precisely tracked those costs with respect to private insurers, and in both cases those costs are growing at a spectacular 9-10% per year. In other words, Medicare has been no more effective than privates at negotiating better deals with hospitals, doctors and drug companies. You’ll end up saving on premiums by not feeding the private insurers anymore but in 3-5 years, you’ll be right back to where you started in terms of total costs, and Medicare rates would to have rise accordingly.

You can say, “why not give them another shot” at negotiating better deals, but to me that would be the essence of insanity – doing things over and over again in the expectation that’ll lead to a different outcome. It won’t happen. The service providers are too corrupt and too wasteful to be easily cowed into doing the right thing. A set of economic and regulatory incentives have to be built into the architecture of the system to control cost-growth and slash budgets and purge waste to roll back costs, probably back to 1990 levels. The PO MAY give us some of the mechanics to do that. Medicare-for-all certainly does not.

In the end, I still think the most likely ultimate scenario will be system nationalization (VA-for-all) followed by brutal cost cutting. But with a well-designed PO-based system we may be able to forestall that scenario by decades.

Eastern, I believe!
FWDiva

Trouble is the senate. If most of what he wants can come through “reconciliation”, then no problem- but I have read and heard several accounts from senate experts that it is probably not possible. If he needs sixty votes, I don’t think that he can get em….Can you count sixty “yes” votes?

The idea of getting every dem to vote for cloture and then vote as they wish on the underlying bill has some merit, but it is far from clear that they can get sixty cloture votes- remember that they need EVERY dem plus Lieberweasel

5PM Eastern…hosted by Christy…according to the Book Salon post-it on the right hand side of my screen.

Many of the rightees are saying tort reform will help. I don’t think that is necessary. If best practices are established if a doctor follows them then that would be adequate defense.

I keep waiting for some enlightened reporter to point out that tort reform is a lot like the so called pork in the stimulus. Tort reform only accoutns for 0.47% of insurance costs. That’s right, it’s bullshit!

Thanks, Elliot!

We apparently got tort reform in California. My health care premium didn’t go down. It’s bullshit!!

Two? Two? Piker. *g*

yeah… if tort reform helped contain costs, Anthem BC/BS certainly didn’t pass it onto me.

I have this fantasy where we get a strong public option, then the excitement builds toward the 2010 elections where we find the economy and jobs situation starting to improve. The DNC along with moveon.org and other groups begin running ads against the GOP using all the footage of people like Grassley at this townhalls perpetuating lies, and various elected GOP officials spewing birtherism, death panels and all the other bile we’ve seen from these idiots. Then, in a trend not seen, the Dems pick up another 8 to 10 seats leaving the idiot media stunned and unable to explain just where the GOP went wrong after their summer of crazy! Then, I wake up in a cold sweat!