JKane

Damn, almost certainly only one more month of the circus then!

Wow, that's kinda surprising. Damn, if Mormon elite Romney can convince the CPAC whack-jobs then I'd guess the primaries will be winding down soon. Damn it.

Yep! But notice the hypocrisy--even given 20% off the top they know it'd be *very* hard to compete with medicare. Even though they'd be able to turn people down (but *not* dump them and not invalidate the coverage if they dig up something way after the fact...). But of *course* they all prefer the current system with 10-20% of the money going right into their profits and all they have to do to increase that is screw a couple thousand more people out of coverage... Every time one of these asshat politicians has something to say about medicare, I wish somebody in the audience would stand up ask if it's so bad, why is it good enough for your parents/grandparents? Mitt's probably the only one so rich none of his family is in it!

Yep, I think feeling like I was the only person in town (when I lived in the rural south as a kid) that had a problem with the everyday casual racism... I'm not sure if that's what she meant by that, but it certainly liberalized me! Watched The Help with family over x-mas, not old or wealthy enough to be of that period, but it really resonated. And looking at my mom like, what the hell are you crying for--that was you less than 20 years ago!

Just wanted to bump this once more as it's one of the more powerful things I've read. I was hearing something about skyrocketing suicide rates in Russia just yesterday and wondering if it was at all related, as they're also repressing any acknowledgement of LGBT over there, last I heard...

Wait, you sure you're a male?

Here's what I don't get... *Everybody* hates the mandate. Can somebody please tell me what the fuck the objections are to *this* modest proposal...? Everybody is eligible for Medicare. There's a scale where the very poorest can get it free/steeply discounted--just like Medicaid now, from there to a reasonable percentage above the poverty line can get it for cost, and everybody above that can get it for cost plus 20%. That 20% pays for any expansion of the medicaid total, but provides much more, back-filing the deficits caused by the baby boomer generation, making the entire system solvent, even providing room to make improvements. The 20% also gives private companies room to compete. The crux of this whole damn argument is that private enterprise can do it better--despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, so here they go! If they can honestly provide better value to people for less than the medicare mark--or better faster service for more, godspeed! But you do need apples to apples regulation to make sure they're not promising more than they're actually providing. What *the fuck* is wrong with this plan?

You will pay for it one way or another, it's just this horrible Republican tendency to focus only on short term gain for the very few while entirely ignoring the clear long-term good for everybody--themselves included--which somehow fools people. Until their precious daughter dies needlessly in a car accident on the 10 because all the advanced trauma centers on that side of town went under! But that's the dirty filthy immigrants fault! Because a nationality and means test should come before triage and stabilization! Remember that on your next vacation! And when they get called on that, it's time to break out the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Medicare Fraud! Boooga booga boooga! 5% of Medicare funds go to administration and fraud. Over 20% of private insurance funds go to administration, profit, advertising, etc.

Except that often prices aren't directly reimbursed by the government, they are passed on to paying customers of the hospital via bs like $7 Tylenols. Insurance negotiates it down to $1, but people who don't have insurance are faced with an unpayable bill--that may well drive them into bankruptcy, passing the cost of their care onto others as well. Eventually the Ponzi-scheme of for-profit medicine collapses on itself and you end up with large areas entirely without emergency rooms and ever-escalating costs.

I'm tempted to see the play, but when I looked up tickets they were pretty expensive. Either way, Scott provided a good retrospective... I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth. It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America. In the real world, there are only two ways to deal with corporate misbehavior: One is through government regulation and the other is by taking them to court. What has happened over 20 years of free-market proselytizing is that we have dangerously weakened both forms of restraint, first through the craze for “deregulation” and second through endless rounds of “tort reform,” all of which have the effect of cutting off citizens’ access to the courts. By legally bribing politicians with campaign contributions, the corporations have bought themselves immunity from lawsuits on many levels. I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point — race. Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything. Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts. Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention. I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag. It’s all very well to run around saying regulation is bad, get the government off our backs, etc. Of course our lives are regulated. When you come to a stop sign, you stop; if you want to go fishing, you get a license; if you want to shoot ducks, you can shoot only three ducks. The alternative is dead bodies at the intersection, no fish, and no ducks. OK? What you need is sustained outrage . . . there’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority. It probably sounded better in the original German. {Commenting on white supremacist and Hitler apologist Pat Buchanan’s infamous “Culture War” speech at the 1992 Republican convention.}

Just more of the usual conservative christian hypocrisy...

Ah, and song is for songwriter? Guess that makes sense...

God fucking damn it Newton, leave Fred Thompson dead and buried! Nobody wants to hear him snore through another interview. But of course he backs Newt, they're both lobbyists at heart (if Newt had one).

I thought it helped with my weight loss.

They grip tighter and tighter to their ever-shrinking base demographic and in doing so block entry and squeeze out all the moderates. Now if only they didn't have the media inside that iron grip too!!!

Now now Lucky, that hasn't been a part of the Mormon mainstream for at least 5 or 10 years now! Seriously though, if we're going to attack them it should be about real things, not bigoted misconceptions like they use!

Oh, I'd expect much worse!

What the hell is the difference between record and album of the year? I do like Adele, but I really like Mumford and Sons, and it seems like they had more hits off the one record. Where is their second?

It does kind of feel like out of everybody he's kept the most promises to the gay community!

Yeah, what does Tomcal win if he does 2190 Cariocas by May??

With 9 fucking suicides ever politician in that district should've been thrown the fuck out, especially the school board. That article is one of the most powerful things I've read; I really lost it when it mentioned the mother's 9 year old.

But *I* found it over a month ago! King of the Intertubes!

Surprising Adele cover...

Anybody see the stuff about the FBI file on Jobs? Sounds like they drew some of the same conclusions I have...

Pretty cool, so far.