Sarah Palin’s forthcoming reality show … it’s no ‘Keeping up with the Kagans’

The Rolling Stones — Far Away Eyes.

One of the interesting things about becoming part of Greater West Blogistan, in the census district of Firedoglake, is that we get to know one another in a rather one-dimensional way.

Who could have predicted? Now that the mandate to purchase private health insurance is the law of the land, America’s health insurers have decided it’s okay to reveal, well, uh, they really liked the bill’s basic structure all along.

What’s going on here is that some insurance company – or the trade group, AHIP – read the language in the bill and interpreted it favorably to their industry. They’re trying to wiggle off the hook of offering coverage for children with pre-existing conditions TWO DAYS after signage of the law.

Meanwhile, and with all the “excitement” I almost forgot, it should be noted that this reconciliation bill does contain a progressive victory. . . one that would not have likely happened without the efforts of many in this community. Included in the measure now on its way to the president’s desk is a degree of student loan reform that will remove wasteful private middlemen from much of the educational lending process. It is a reform that was championed by Obama, but only a few weeks ago looked like it was headed for the sixty-vote slag heap of Congressional inaction. Interested private lenders, like Sallie Mae, Nelnet, and CititBank, leaned hard on their appointed proxies in the Senate to get it removed from the reconciliation sidecar, and they might have pulled it off had it not been for a good deal of attention given their efforts and the lies they were using to buttress them. Thanks to Jane, Jon, Dave, Scarecrow, and masaccio here at FDL, and many concerned journalists and activists across the country for giving students and educational institutions—not to mention American taxpayers—a measure of victory tonight.

The still unfolding horrors of pedophile priests and Church coverups now includes the Pope himself, for at least the period in which Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But we’ve seen this story before.

Liberals should distance themselves from “liberalism.”

Bill Halter wasted no time today slamming Blanche Lincoln for her vote against the reconciliation bill in the Senate, sending over multiple platforms a condemnation attached to a fundraising ask. Lincoln voted No today on the bill, which included delays to the excise tax, canceling of certain special deals, extending federal support for Medicaid expansion [...]

Today the Senate passed the health care sidecar reconciliation bill, and no Senator spoke up to add the public option as an amendment. That includes Michael Bennet, who raised $70,000 for writing a letter with his fellow Senators asking Harry Reid for an up-or-down vote on the public option. His primary challenger, Andrew Romanoff, issued [...]