THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The list of Idaho Republicans condemning a GOP gubernatorial candidate's comments about buying a license to hunt President Barack Obama grew Friday, as party leaders worried the incident would reflect badly on the state.

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo said former elk rancher Rex Rammell's comment at a Twin Falls GOP merits an apology, U.S. Sen. Jim Risch disavowed him from the Republican Party, and Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter called Rammell's comment "reckless and inflammatory."

...In a statement Friday, Crapo said, "Rex Rammell's comments are in very poor taste and should not have been said. Remarks like these should not even be made jokingly. He should apologize for those remarks and for the perception they may have created."

Otter said Friday afternoon that there was no place for Rammell's comments in Idaho, which he said damages confidence in the political process and those who serve the public.

"As governor, as an Idaho Republican and as a citizen of our state, I reject and condemn this kind of rhetoric," he said.

// posted by montag @ 6:14 PM 1 Comments

The only real reason for concern is political. The United States can deal with its debts if politicians of both parties are, in the end, willing to show at least a bit of maturity. Need I say more?

// posted by montag @ 7:09 AM 0 Comments

On a recent conference call, Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA) had strong words for his centrist Democratic colleagues in the House: “They’re, for the most part, I hate to say, brain dead” and looking to obstruct health insurance reform in order to pick up large campaign contributions.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, listening in to a conference call with liberal group with Campaign for America’s Future, Stark insisted “they just want to cause trouble,” according to the Associated Press.

“[They're] just looking to raise money from insurance companies and promote a right-wing agenda that is not really very useful in this whole process,” he said, added AP.

// posted by montag @ 6:55 AM 0 Comments

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says a man has died after a deputy shocked him three times with an electric stun gun at a subway station.

// posted by montag @ 6:47 AM 0 Comments

As the Obama administration and Democrats wrangled over the timing, shape and cost of health care overhaul efforts during the first half of the year, more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions the Democratic Party's Blue Dog Coalition received came from the pharmaceutical, health care and health insurance industries, according to watchdog organizations.

The amount outstrips contributions to other congressional political action committees during the same period, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit watchdog organization. The Blue Dogs, a group of fiscally conservative lawmakers, successfully delayed the vote on health care overhaul proposals until the fall...

...On average, Blue Dog Democrats net $62,650 more from the health sector than other Democrats, while hospitals and nursing homes also favor them, giving, respectively, $5,680 and $5,550 more, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit organization that tracks the influence of money in politics.

At the same time, many Blue Dogs were also rubbing shoulders with health care and insurance industry executives and their lobbyists at fundraising breakfasts and cocktail receptions that cost upward of $1,000 a plate, according to public information compiled by the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation, which advocates greater government transparency. Since 2008, more than half the Blue Dogs have either attended health care industry fundraising receptions or similar functions co-sponsored by lobbyists representing the health care and insurance industries.

// posted by montag @ 6:13 PM 0 Comments

It was a heated debate during the Bush administration: What to do about evidence that Afghanistan’s powerful defense minister was involved in drug trafficking? Officials from the time say they needed him to help run the troubled country. So the answer, in the end: look the other way.

Today that debate will be even more fraught for a new administration, for the former defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, stands a strong chance of becoming the next vice president of Afghanistan.

In his bid for re-election, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has surrounded himself with checkered figures who could bring him votes: warlords suspected of war crimes, corruption and trafficking in the country’s lucrative poppy crop. But none is as influential as Marshal Fahim, his running mate, whose trajectory in and out of power, and American favor, says much about the struggle the United States has had in dealing with corruption in Afghanistan.

// posted by montag @ 6:46 AM 0 Comments

On the contrary, this fair, efficiently run health care system costs roughly a third less per person that the US system - that’s right, about 1/3 less per capita – despite (or because?) everyone being on board and receiving comprehensive health care.

That figure doesn’t come from rationing, long waits to see a doctor, or long waiting lists to get an operation, either - that doesn’t happen here. What that figure does reflect, however, is just how much waste, duplication, and gouging of consumers must be taking place in the US health care system every day.

// posted by montag @ 7:13 PM 0 Comments

Rush Limbaugh offered himself some kudos Wednesday for predicting in March that the health care bill wouldn't be passed before Ted Kennedy's death.

"Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill," Limbaugh said at the time.

I predicted it.

// posted by montag @ 6:12 PM 1 Comments

Beer drinkers beware: The cost of a cold one is going up. Anheuser-Busch InBev., which brews Budweiser, plans to raise prices.

"We plan on taking price increases on a majority of volume and in a majority of markets this fall,"

// posted by montag @ 7:24 AM 0 Comments

In a statement Monday evening, former Vice President Dick Cheney accused the Obama White House of politicizing the Justice Department and insisted that a new report on interrogation policies by the CIA proved the efficacy of torture.

Neither statement was correct.

// posted by montag @ 7:03 PM 0 Comments

Responding to questions posed by a federal judge, Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission said the bank had relied on its outside lawyers to fill in the fine print in that firm’s controversial marriage with Bank of America.

That meant that lawyers at two firms — Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as well as Shearman & Sterling — handled a decision to keep Merrill’s $3.6 billion in bonus payouts a secret from Bank of America’s shareholders, according to the filings.

// posted by montag @ 7:19 AM 0 Comments

The war in Afghanistan made sense once but it doesn’t any longer. The war in Iraq never did. And yet, with most of the country tuned out entirely, we’re still suiting up the soldiers and the Marines, putting them on planes and sending them off with a high stakes (life or death) roll of the dice.

“2nd Tour, Hope I Don’t Die.”

Or maybe it’s the third tour, or fourth, or fifth. The book’s title came from graffiti scrawled on a wall at an Air Force base in Kuwait that was one of the transit points for troops heading to Iraq. America’s young fighting men and women have to make these multiple tours because the overwhelming majority of the American people want no part of the nation’s wars. They don’t want to serve, they don’t want to make any sacrifices here on the home front — they don’t even want to pay the taxes that would be needed to raise the money to pay for the wars. We just add the trillions to deficits that stretch as far as the eye can see.

To the extent that we think about the wars at all, it’s just long enough to point our fingers at the volunteers and say: “Oh yeah, great. You go. And if you come back maimed or dead we’ll salute you as a hero.”

// posted by montag @ 7:14 AM 0 Comments

The tablets are among 40 or so memorials dotted all over Russia to commemorate not only Chernobyl but earlier disasters, or nuclear tests, that were kept secret for decades — near Chelyabinsk in 1957, at Semipalatinsk from 1949 — as well as all who have died or suffered as a result of joining the hundreds of thousands of people who were drafted or volunteered for the cleanup and encasing of the reactor, the “liquidation” of the Chernobyl accident, as the Soviets called it.

These memorials have drawn scant attention either nationally or internationally. They have sprung up mostly on local initiative by members of a national association, Soyuz Chernobyl, or the Union of Chernobyl, a nongovernmental organization founded in 1990 to remind everyone of the dangers of radiation (which were unsuspected by most Soviet citizens at the time of the Chernobyl accident).

Vladimir V. Bondarenko, a group member reached by telephone at its Moscow headquarters, said some branches apply to town or regional councils to pay for the memorials, while others raise their own money. The installations range from Tarusa’s simple plaques to elaborate commissioned sculptures.

// posted by montag @ 8:04 PM 0 Comments

In addition to being a dick, Bachmann's track record has proven she is also a full-fledged nutjob. The type of person that makes you turn to your friend the moment she gets up to use the bathroom and mouth "She's craaaaaaazy," complete with hand motions and bug-eyes.

While Bachmann has always been a local dick, she didn't come onto the national dick scene until the 2008 election when she accused Barack Obama and many members of Congress of being "anti-American."

Like her pal Palin, Bachmann is deceptively attractive. While Palin is attractive in a "if she just put down that gun, took off those glasses, and started forming complete sentences" sort of way, Bachmann has the whole girl next door thing working for her. But only if you grew up next to an insane asylum.

// posted by montag @ 7:52 PM 1 Comments

Lashed by liberals and threatened with more government regulation, the insurance industry nevertheless rallied its lobbying and grass-roots resources so successfully in the early stages of the healthcare overhaul deliberations that it is poised to reap a financial windfall.

The half-dozen leading overhaul proposals circulating in Congress would require all citizens to have health insurance, which would guarantee insurers tens of millions of new customers -- many of whom would get government subsidies to help pay the companies' premiums.

"It's a bonanza," said Robert Laszewski, a health insurance executive for 20 years who now tracks reform legislation as president of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates Inc.

Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled down to a single word: "Hallelujah!"

// posted by montag @ 6:08 PM 0 Comments

Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.

Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.

First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.

To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.

Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.

// posted by montag @ 7:18 AM 1 Comments

“I believe that one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option,” said McCain, leaving his studio audience in stitches.

“I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy is out of recession. There’s no reason we have to do it all now.”

// posted by montag @ 6:59 AM 0 Comments

Far from jeopardizing US security, as some politicians claim, an investigation into torture practices during the Bush administration would prevent future abuses, say three senior veterans of the intelligence community.

An article by Jason Leopold at the Public Record news site says that former FBI counterterrorism expert Jack Cloonan, military interrogator Col. Steve Kleinman, and “Matthew Alexander,” the pseudonym of a special-ops interrogator who was part of a task force in Iraq, are all urging Congress and the White House to launch investigations into torture practices during the Bush era.

Not only would the three like to see a wide-ranging investigation into torture practices — as opposed to the “narrow” investigation being mulled by Attorney General Eric Holder — they would also like to see a separate investigation into how the policies allowing torture were formed in the first place.

// posted by montag @ 6:46 AM 0 Comments

The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.

In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.

// posted by montag @ 2:04 PM 0 Comments

If nothing is done to slow current trends, the number of people in this country without insurance or with inadequate coverage will continue to spiral upward. That would be a personal tragedy for many and a moral disgrace for the nation. It is also by no means cost-free. Any nation as rich as ours ought to guarantee health coverage for all of its residents.

// posted by montag @ 1:52 PM 0 Comments

Several studies show that in lots of places, one or two companies dominate the market. Critics say monopolistic conditions drive up premiums paid by employers and individuals.

For Democrats, the answer is a public plan that would compete with private insurers. Republicans see that as a government power grab. President Barack Obama looks to be trapped in the middle of an argument that could sink his effort to overhaul the health care system.

Even lawmakers opposed to a government plan have problems with the growing clout of the big private companies.

"There is a serious problem with the lack of competition among insurers," said Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of the highest-cost states. "The impact on the consumer is significant."

Wellpoint Inc. accounted for 71 percent of the Maine market, while runner-up Aetna had a 12 percent share, according to a 2008 report by the American Medical Association.

Proponents of a government plan say it could restore a competitive balance and lead to lower costs. For one thing, it wouldn't have to turn a profit.

A study by the Urban Institute public policy center estimated that a public plan could save taxpayers from $224 billion to $400 billion over 10 years by lowering the cost of proposed subsidies for the uninsured, while preserving private coverage for most people.

"Right now, there's no incentive for insurers or big hospital groups to negotiate with each other, because they can pass higher payments on through premiums," said economist Linda Blumberg, co-author of the report. "A public plan would have the leverage to set lower payment rates and get providers to participate at those rates."

// posted by montag @ 1:24 PM 0 Comments

US House Representative Wally Herger, of California’s 2nd congressional district, expressed “enthusiastic approval” of a town-hall attendee who described himself as a “proud right-wing terrorist,” newspapers in northern California report.

According to the Redding Record Searchlight, an incident broke out at a town hall at Simpson University in Redding on Tuesday when Herger signaled encouragement to a 67-year-old town hall attendee, Bert Stead, who called himself a “proud right-wing terrorist.”

“Amen, God bless you,” Herger reportedly replied to the comment. “There is a great American.”

...“Our democracy has never been threatened as much as it is today,” the Mount Shasta Area Newspapers quoted Herger as saying.

// posted by montag @ 1:14 PM 0 Comments

Sen. John McCain believes that President Barack Obama must drop his support for a public insurance option before Republicans will consider supporting reform.

“I believe that one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option,”

...“I think that Republicans are more than agreeable to sit down and talk about various reforms,” he added.

Asked about the president’s remark that McCain’s former running mate Sarah Palin’s “death panels” comment is an “extraordinary lie,” McCain argued that “the way that [that clause] was written made it a little ambiguous.”

// posted by montag @ 1:03 PM 0 Comments

Even with the new operation in Helmand Province, which involves the Marines here and more than 3,000 others as part of President Obama’s troop deployments, the military lacks the troop strength even to try to secure some significant population centers and guerrilla strongholds in central and southern Helmand.

And they do not have nearly enough forces to provide the kinds of services throughout the region that would make a meaningful difference in Afghans’ lives, which, in any case, is a job American commanders would rather leave for the Afghan government.

Meanwhile, Afghans in Khan Neshin, the Marines’ southernmost outpost in Helmand Province, are coming to the Americans with requests for medical care, repairs of clogged irrigation canals and the reopening of schools.

“Without the Afghan government, we will not be successful,” said Capt. Korvin Kraics, the battalion’s lawyer, who is in Khan Neshin. “You need local-level bureaucracy to defeat the insurgency. Without the stability that brings, the Taliban can continue to maintain control.”

Local administration is a problem throughout Afghanistan, and many rural areas suffer from corrupt local officials — if they have officials at all. But southern Helmand has long been one of the most ungovernable regions, a vast, inhospitable desert dominated by opium traffickers and the Taliban.

// posted by montag @ 4:41 PM 0 Comments

Liberal activists are pressuring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and party leaders to crack down on renegade centrist Democrats who might block President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul.

Democratic leaders should make it clear to Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and other centrists that they have an obligation to help the party advance a Democratic healthcare bill this fall, the activists say, and those that disregard the call and join in a Republican filibuster should face real consequences...

...Now liberal activists say it is time to instill some party discipline so that Democrats can take full advantage of the power they have controlling 60 Senate seats. They have gone so far as to suggest that centrists should be threatened with lack of financial support from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

"There ought to be real pressure in terms of making it clear to people what is expected,” said Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future. “They are not going to get support from DSCC if they’re not going to be loyal on basic procedural votes to give the president an up-or-down vote on his plan.

// posted by montag @ 12:53 PM 0 Comments

That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress, and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions.

// posted by montag @ 12:34 PM 0 Comments

Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies and their chief executives on Friday, declaring that they "don't make a lot of money" and shouldn't be scapegoats in the health care debate.

The mayor – and wealthiest person in New York City with a fortune estimated at $16.5 billion – made the comments on his radio show Friday during a discussion about health care.

"You know, last time I checked, pharmaceutical companies don't make a lot of money, their executives don't make a lot of money – not that they couldn't be better," Bloomberg said.

Pharmaceutical CEOs are known to make millions, with generous salaries, stock options and other perks.

Abbott Laboratories Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Miles White's compensation was $25.3 million in 2008. The North Chicago, Ill.-based company saw profit rising 35 percent to $4.88 billion.

Merck & Co.'s chief executive, Richard T. Clark, received a $17.3 million compensation package for 2008. The company's profit more than doubled to $7.8 billion.

// posted by montag @ 10:24 PM 0 Comments

A backlash in the progressive base — which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory — has been building for months. The fight over the public option involves real policy substance, but it’s also a proxy for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall approach.

Now, politics is the art of the possible. Mr. Obama was never going to get everything his supporters wanted.

But there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. It seems as if there is nothing Republicans can do that will draw an administration rebuke: Senator Charles E. Grassley feeds the death panel smear, warning that reform will “pull the plug on grandma,” and two days later the White House declares that it’s still committed to working with him.

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable.

So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back

// posted by montag @ 7:07 AM 0 Comments

Lawyer declines to say how he found out accuser didn’t talk to Justice Department

Karl Rove’s latest attempt to proclaim his innocence and demand apologies from those who have accused him of being behind the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman may backfire if it turns out that Rove was improperly receiving inside information after leaving his position as Deputy White House Chief of Staff.

// posted by montag @ 6:49 AM 0 Comments

In recent days yet another wealthy private customer of the Swiss-based banking conglomerate UBS admitted to criminal fraud in a growing parade of perp walks that could extend into the thousands. It is a case that threatens to ensnare former Sen. Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who is vice chairman of UBS' investment banking business. Given the widespread involvement of UBS in what the Justice Department alleges were systematic efforts to violate U.S. tax laws, it must be asked: Did Gramm as a top executive have no inkling about what was going on?

"It will provide me with an opportunity to practice what I've always preached.... I have a strange combination of experiences that a lot of people don't have... knowledge of economics, a knowledge of government policy."

// posted by montag @ 7:07 AM 0 Comments

Nine Republican Senators are urging Attorney General Eric Holder to drop the idea of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era torture practices, news reports indicated Wednesday.

The appointment of a special prosecutor would “have serious consequences, not just for the honorable members of the intelligence community, but also for the security of all Americans,” nine GOP senators told Holder in a letter, as reported at the Hill.

Among the nine are Kit Bond (R-MO), who is the ranking GOP member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The others are Christopher Bond (R-MO), Richard Burr (R-NC), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), John Cornyn (R-TX), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John Kyl (R-AZ), and Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

// posted by montag @ 6:50 AM 0 Comments

What do you mean blow up the Senate rules? Look, there’s a reason that there’s a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and Democratic presidency. That middle block of Americans want us to get this done.

// posted by montag @ 6:35 PM 0 Comments

The Israeli press is in flames over what is being called a “medieval blood libel” by a Swedish newspaper which alleged today that Israeli Defense Force soldiers have been killing Palestinians, including children, and selling their organs.

The claims were so offensive to Israeli officials, they ordered the nation’s embassy in Stockholm to demand the Swedish government condemn the paper, according to published reports.

The reporter, according to Israeli publication Y-Net, characterized a Palestinian man’s offenses as interfering with “Israeli conquering forces.”

// posted by montag @ 6:48 AM 0 Comments

Giving up on the public option might be expedient. But we didn't elect Obama to be an expedient president. We elected him to be a great one.

// posted by montag @ 7:02 PM 0 Comments

Health insurance is mighty important to three-time cancer survivor Mary Duffy, of Redwood City, California. So when she lost her job in June 2008, she opted to pay the big premiums to keep her coverage under the COBRA program. But COBRA has a time limit -- 18 months. In December, Duffy's being kicked loose.

// posted by montag @ 6:09 PM 0 Comments

Sounds like tough-talk from a man who was introduced on the show as "former Senate majority leader Democrat Tom Daschle, an informal adviser to the White House and author of 'Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.' " Left unmentioned was the fact that Daschle, in his capacity as a high-paid consultant at the law firm Alston and Bird, is once again working closely with lobbyists for UnitedHealth, the largest U.S. industry player, aiding the company's effort to convince moderate Senate and House Democrats to, among other things, kill the public option and keep company profits high.

// posted by montag @ 7:22 AM 0 Comments

Forget about a crackdown on price-gouging drug companies and predatory insurance firms. That’s not happening. With the public pretty well confused about what is going on, we’re headed — at best — toward changes that will result in a lot more people getting covered, but that will not control exploding health care costs and will leave industry leaders feeling like they’ve hit the jackpot.

The hope of a government-run insurance option is all but gone. So there will be no effective alternative for consumers in the market for health coverage, which means no competitive pressure for private insurers to rein in premiums and other charges. (Forget about the nonprofit cooperatives. That’s like sending peewee footballers up against the Super Bowl champs.)

Insurance companies are delighted with the way “reform” is unfolding. Think of it: The government is planning to require most uninsured Americans to buy health coverage. Millions of young and healthy individuals will be herded into the industry’s welcoming arms. This is the population the insurers drool over.

// posted by montag @ 6:48 AM 0 Comments

perhaps Democrats can win over a few Republicans if they keep government out of the insurance industry and create a system of privately-held health-care co-operatives instead. Simple right?

Not if the RNC has anything to say about it.

They're out today with a new release, attacking the co-op idea

// posted by montag @ 6:09 PM 0 Comments

the third route to universal coverage relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered. Switzerland offers the clearest example: everyone is required to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies.

At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

// posted by montag @ 6:47 AM 0 Comments

So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.

// posted by montag @ 4:37 PM 0 Comments

As the convoy rumbled up the road in Iraq, Specialist Veronica Alfaro was struck by the beauty of fireflies dancing in the night. Then she heard the unmistakable pinging of tracer rounds and, in a Baghdad moment, realized the insects were illuminated bullets.

She jumped from behind the wheel of her gun truck, grabbed her medical bag and sprinted 50 yards to a stalled civilian truck. On the way, bullets kicked up dust near her feet. She pulled the badly wounded driver to the ground and got to work.

Despite her best efforts, the driver died, but her heroism that January night last year earned Specialist Alfaro a Bronze Star for valor. She had already received a combat action badge for fending off insurgents as a machine gunner.

“I did everything there,” Ms. Alfaro, 25, said of her time in Iraq. “I gunned. I drove. I ran as a truck commander. And underneath it all, I was a medic.”

// posted by montag @ 1:11 PM 0 Comments

What we haven’t heard are the voices of the millions upon millions of Americans who quietly struggle every day with a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.

These are people like Lori Hitchcock, whom I met in New Hampshire last week. Lori is currently self-employed and trying to start a business, but because she has hepatitis C, she cannot find an insurance company that will cover her. Another woman testified that an insurance company would not cover illnesses related to her internal organs because of an accident she had when she was 5 years old. A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn’t known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died.

I hear more and more stories like these every single day, and it is why we are acting so urgently to pass health-insurance reform this year. I don’t have to explain to the nearly 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance how important this is. But it’s just as important for Americans who do have health insurance.

This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies.

// posted by montag @ 12:31 PM 0 Comments

Afghan authorities are trying to determine how a suicide bomber breached tight security in Kabul's diplomatic quarter on Saturday and detonated an SUV packed with explosives in front of NATO headquarters five days before the presidential election.

// posted by montag @ 7:31 PM 0 Comments

Betsy McCaughey is a professional liar. She lies. The things she writes are untrue. They are not even "distortions." They are made-up. Everyone has known this for years and yet she was still allowed to derail the nation this month.

McCaughey's schtick, as described by James Fallows, is to pose as a disinterested, objective researcher who is just shocked and dismayed to find something insane and evil in a piece of legislation supported by a Democratic president.

And then she sits down to write a very serious and nonpartisan and concerned piece of analysis of this evil thing in the legislation that she made up. And then some respectable outlet publishes her serious analysis. And then, within minutes, partisan Republican columnists, talk radio hosts, politicians, and operatives are disseminating talking points taken directly from that serious piece of entirely made-up bullshit analysis.

// posted by montag @ 7:04 PM 0 Comments

You know who really is opposed to the Obama healthcare plan? The Republicans. Apparently it does not cover breast implants for their mistresses so they think, 'We don't want it. We don't need it.

// posted by montag @ 1:28 PM 0 Comments

The Blue Dogs come largely from rural and Southern districts, and often campaign by distancing themselves from the national party. Their support comes from voters who are conservative on social issues like guns and abortion. But on bread-and-butter concerns, these legislators are voting with their contributors, not their constituents.

The Blue Dogs parade as "fiscal conservatives" and "moderates," false advertising that the mainstream press mindlessly echoes. In fact, they are the epitome of a Washington captured by moneyed interests. They aren't working to ensure that healthcare reforms are paid for; they are laboring on behalf of insurance companies to protect their obscene profits. The Blue Dogs are maneuvering on behalf of Big Pharma to make sure the government won't negotiate reasonable drug prices. They're doing their best to derail reasonable tax hikes on the affluent, hikes that would make insurance affordable for working- and middle-class families. Even on the Blue Dogs' signature issue--the "pay-go" rules, which they insist must be passed into law--they exempt reductions in the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans and, of course, the cost of any military adventure whatsoever.

// posted by montag @ 1:09 PM 0 Comments

Earlier in the week we noted that the price of sugar hit a 28-year high because drought in India and rain in Brazil — the top-two producers — have reduced crops. A contributing factor is the increasing amount of sugar being used to produce ethanol fuel. As a result, hedge funds and other speculators are betting the price will rise further. Their bets paid off yesterday: it jumped 4.4%.

Gasoline futures may fall from $2.02 a gallon to $1.76 by mid-September and below $1.35 by the end of the year, according to technical analysis by Infinitytrading.com.

The front-month gasoline contract is poised for a slide to $1.9575 within seven to 10 days and then $1.7619 within 30 days, said Fain Shaffer, president of Infinitytrading.com, a commodities brokerage in Medford, Oregon. Prices may then reach the April low of $1.3411, he said.

“We’re coming out of the peak demand time, we’ve seen the highs in the market and could be setting up for a pretty good fall,” Shaffer said in an interview. “I think we may have seen a peak in the market at $2.08. The next objective is $1.95 and from there we could free-fall.”

// posted by montag @ 12:56 PM 0 Comments

If there is any doubt that President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul U.S. health care is the hottest topic in Congress, just ask the 3,300 lobbyists who have lined up to work on the issue.

That’s six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

These groups spent $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group, more than any other industry. They spent $241.4 million during the same period of 2008. Drugmakers alone spent $134.5 million, 64 percent more than the next biggest spenders, oil and gas companies.

“Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for K Street,”

// posted by montag @ 12:29 PM 0 Comments

As Time’s Amy Sullivan reported late last night, Grassley voted for the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which — ready? — provided coverage for “counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning.”

The only difference between the 2003 bill and the House Dem one that’s inspired the “euthanasia” talk, Sullivan reports, is that the earlier one “applied only to terminally ill patients.”

Let’s go back and check the roll call on that 2003 vote to see who else voted for it. Turns out Boehner, McCotter and Isakson all did, too.

Boehner and McCotter, as you know, have said that Medicare coverage of end of life consultations could lead to “government encouraged euthanasia.” While Isakson supports end of life counseling generally, he opposes the House bill because it allows “government to incentivize doctors by offering them money to conduct end-of-life counseling.” Grassley said people are “right to fear” that government could “decide when to pull the plug on grandma.”

Fun postscript: GOP Rep. John Mica of Florida voted for the 2003 bill — and last week he denounced the current House measure for creating Medicare-funded “death counselors.”

// posted by montag @ 6:29 PM 0 Comments