THE ANSWER LIES IN THE WORLD OF WEYMOUTH! Weymouth was going to stage a soiree. To manufacture consent?

THE ANSWER LIES IN THE WORLD OF WEYMOUTH: By complete happenstance, Lally Weymouth’s first salon was going to be about health care. Read more…

Here's a story I missed at the time (June 17th), brought up by a local activist in our meeting today: three health insurance CEOs refused, in a Congressional hearing, to limit rescissions to cases of fraud ("rescission" is the health care parasites' term for retroactively canceling your policy, nominally on the grounds that you failed to disclose a material fact about your health history): Read more…

Digby links this excellent reporting on the pay for parasites:

* United Health Group
CEO: William W McGuire
2005: 124.8 mil
5-year: 342 mil

* Forest Labs
CEO: Howard Solomon
2005: 92.1 mil
5-year: 295 mil

* Caremark Rx
CEO: Edwin M Crawford
2005: 77.9 mil
5-year: 93.6 mil

* Abbott Lab
CEO: Miles White
2005: 26.2 mil Read more…

Report: Medicare Expansion Would Not Solve Problems

To illustrate what it might take to save Medicare, the commission describes how primary-care doctors, specialists and hospitals could be reorganized into "accountable care organizations" whose members would receive bonuses if the organizations met quality and cost targets. To ratchet up the incentives, health-care providers who fail to meet cost and quality targets could be penalized, the report says.

If we do not speak out the health insurance parasites denial of care model will be legitimized under the pretext of cost control.

Actually, three moments of remembrance for men shot and killed in the name of hate, as the siege on American values and progress continues apace.

Let us stop and remember a moment for each of these Americans, whose murders were not, despite the spew of cable "news" and the calumny repeated by GOP leaders and the national media's "pundits," perpetrated by the dangerous Socialist left taking over the country.

.

_{(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)} Read more…

We've all heard what happened to Dr. George Tiller and the clinic he operated. Now there's been another shooting, this time in DC. There's been another murder, this time of a black man working as a security guard.
I really do not know what more to say about the murder of a Holocaust Museum guard today, except that the shooter is in custody.
Please take a moment to remember Stephen Tyrone Johns._{CNN Photo}
CNN says:

The museum released a statement saying Johns died "heroically in the line of duty."

Fifty-one year-old Scott Roeder told CNN the permanent closure of the clinic where Dr. George Tiller provided 3d-trimester abortions, among other ob/gyn services, for women patients until he was murdered May 31 in the vestibule of his Lutheran church, was "a victory for the unborn." CNN gives Roeder a voice and a pulpit, and I hate to link to either. (Oh, and Roeder complains his jail cell is freezing. Poor poor misunderstood domestic terrorist.) But the family's decision not to reopen Dr. Tiller's clinic factually reduces by one-third the total number of providers who would treat women in dire need, late in pregnancy, as well as taking care of other obstetrical health issues women presented.

And naturally the media finds fault. Texas Democratic House Leader Jim Dunnam, whose caucus work this session was instrumental in forcing down this attempt to suppress votes, puts it neatly:

But Representative Jim Dunnam, the leader of the House Democrats, said stopping the voter ID legislation was worth the collateral damage to other bills. In the Democrats’ eyes, the voter bill was aimed at suppressing the votes of minorities, the elderly and the poor.Democrats, Read more…

Glen Ford at BAR reminds us that the only "change" coming to New Orleans under "our" new President is the erasure of poor black people from the city's future.

Not a single one of 500 planned “Katrina cottages” has been made ready for occupancy. Elderly people squat in abandoned buildings. There are no credible plans to repair or create an infrastructure that could accommodate the poor who still remain, much less the New Orleans diaspora, scattered to the four winds three and a half years ago. Read more…

ABC:

Two psychologists are responsible for designing the CIA's program of waterboarding suspected terrorists and for assuring the government the program was safe, according to an ABC News report.

Former military officers Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell had an "important role in developing what became the CIA's torture program," Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the ACLU, told ABC News.

Good to have the names. Presumably their licenses to practie will be revoked? Read more…

When you get mildew, it's never just one plant. Whatever rotted Broder's sensibility and conscience infests everything. Take a look at this front page teaser today from Pravda on the Potomac:

It's all here, isn't it? All wrapped up in one little compact package. Read more…

Simple, simple stuff:

The failure of the Democratic Party to meaningfully oppose what was done over the last eight years is a crucial part of the story here and light needs to be shined on that as much as anything else. I don't know of a single person who has devoted themselves to arguing for investigations who contests that fact.

You'd think the Democrats would want to clear their names. And ours. Why don't they? Read more…

Tracking Loans Through a Firm That Holds Millions

MERS, a tiny data-management company, claimed the right to foreclose, but would not explain how it came to possess the mortgage notes originally issued by banks. Judge Logan summoned a MERS lawyer to the Pinellas County courthouse and insisted that that fundamental question be answered before he permitted the drastic step of seizing someone’s home.

“You don’t think that’s reasonable?” the judge asked.

“I don’t,” the lawyer replied. “And in fact, not only do I think it’s not reasonable, often that’s going to be impossible.”

and all three states' legislatures passed resolutions to that effect THIS YEAR in response to "a threat" to the "right to keep and bear arms." At least here in Texas it's just the (usual idiocy from our) Governor mouthing off.
Here's a snippet from the Georgia legislation: Read more…

Trawling through the Pravda web site reveals more juicy amusingness. Yes, I know, it is not news that it is a buffet of nuttiness. This time it is Sir Cabbagemallet, keeping the dream alive:

Having thus bravely rallied the international community and summoned the United Nations -- a fiction and a farce, respectively -- what was Obama's further response? The very next day, his defense secretary announced drastic cuts in missile defense, including halting further deployment of Alaska-based interceptors designed precisely to shoot down North Korean ICBMs. Such is the "realism" Obama promised to restore to U.S. foreign policy. Read more…

Can we all take a moment for a mocking chuckle at the hard right thinktankazoids? Jesse Taylor has an entertaining take on Ramesh Ponnuru's plan for expanding health insurance. Read more…

Just read this via a twitter I got:

Congressional Panel Suggests Firing Managers, Liquidating Banks

A congressional panel overseeing the U.S. financial rescue suggested that getting rid of top executives and liquidating problem banks may be a better way to solve the economic crisis.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a report released yesterday, also said the Treasury may be relying on too rosy an economic scenario to guide its $700 billion bailout, and declared that the success of the program after six months is “mixed.” Three of the group’s members disagreed with at least some of the findings. Read more…

FDL (Emphasis mine):

Alaska's Frost Lady is part of Eminem's stimulus package.

Gov GILF has a new fan in rapper Eminem, who includes Sarah Palin in a wish list of ladies with whom he'd like to be intimately involved. Palin joins the rapper's hit list of simulated sexy celebs like Lindsey Lohan, Kim Kardashian, and Jessica Simpson in the video for "We Made You." Fame, it's a bitch.

Well I can be as gentle and as smooth as a gentleman Give me my venom, an inhaler, and two Xenadrine, And I'll invite Sarah Palin out to dinner, then Nail her. Baby, say hello to my little friend

Scott Horton. Read more…

"Where in the world are Ralph, Donna and Calvin?" According to Women's Wear Daily, "major American fashion designers" have their noses out of joint because first lady Michelle Obama is wearing ... other designers' clothes.

The Telegraph has more on not just her looks but the reception her looks as well as her actions earned, as does "Fabsugar UK.

As possibly the world's most confirmed anti-fashionista, the sniping tone of the rag trade's leading authority's article, once it was pointed out to me, made me grin up my sleeve. Seriously, when you recognize that the "big American" designers' clothes are (a) overpriced beyond the dreams of avarice (b) crafted in sweatshops overseas and (c) designed for starveling barely-adolescents, it's obvious WHY Mrs. Obama wears, instead, J. Crew, for instance.

Like the auto and financial industries, fashion is in crisis. Yet the person in the administration best positioned to support its major players — those whose collective vicissitudes play into the economy in a considerable way and whose individual swings of fortune impact the lives of countless working people up and down the supply chain and their families — is giving them the cold shoulder.

Oh, my gosh. Michelle Obama chooses clothes by designers regular American women can (a) wear and (b) afford? She doesn't strive to emulate the "heroin chic" look? Quelle horreur -- NOT.

Yes, actually, and at least one designer is ok with that: (Michael) Kors, the only major designer to have found his way into a recent photo op, defends Obama’s range. “She’s the first First Lady who’s ever worn sportswear,” he says. “If you think about it, she’s worn everybody from Azzedine Alaïa to Michael Kors to Isabel Toledo or Jason Wu to J. Crew to Donna Ricco.”

First just look at Michelle Obama. She's fit, healthy, graceful, vigorous, smart, and, well -- she's physically attractive. Oh, and, um, not only is she smart, but she makes being smart cool. Plus, she looks terrific in my favorite shade of blue.

Both the Obamas are fit, physically active people. It shows. Not in that sweaty exercise-addicted way W sometimes displayed, but in a way that absolutely turns the "fashion sense" of establishment fixtures wrong-side-out. With gorgeous results, IMNVHO.

And I'm not alone, according to the still-in-a-snit WWD:

London's The Daily Telegraph proclaim(s) Obama “the mint-green queen of fashion,” while The Guardian said “Mrs. O has all but obliterated last year’s Carlamania from the fashion history books, with an outfit that draws a direct bloodline between her look and the wardrobe with which Jackie Kennedy wowed Europe in 1961.”

Yep. She's being compared to Jackie Kennedy. The editors at Women's Wear Daily are in a fizzy hissyfit over this, but I think the evocation of the fabulous Camelot First Lady is perfectly appropriate. Why? Because Michelle Obama is young. She's fit. She's lovely. She's lively. She is, in a word, cool -- in a way full of what the young people nowadays call 'hotness.' Not since Jackie has a first lady been able to bring this panache, on America's behalf, into the public eye with such seriously delightful results. It's another corner turned toward the 22nd century. Read more…

Most workers improving their personal health to compensate for rising healthcare costs, Watson Wyatt says

According to the survey, 12 percent of workers have reduced contributions to their retirement savings plans because of higher healthcare costs, while 18 percent have cut back on contributions to other savings. About one in four workers also reported higher stress levels due to rising healthcare costs. Read more…

UPDATE Jill Long Thompson to run against Evan Bayh in the primary?!?

Last month, the unhappy unions tried to oust Dan Parker as state chairman of the Indiana Dems, a move seen by many as a shot across the bow against Evan Bayh (the figurehead who keeps giving his blessing to Parker). Those same unhappy unions were some of JLT’s biggest supporters last year, when the Parker-led state party couldn’t care less about her. We think this has legs, but we’ll remain skeptical (and hopeful) until something more concrete materializes.

Edit - It does not look like she would be a credible candidate. Read more…

You will know who said these things. They are documented; you can get the audio and video from YouTube and all over the internet, if you so desire. But nobody raises a peep about this, and now this ... drug-addled blowhard ... is the de facto leader of the Republican party. Well, e-freaking-golldang-nuff, say I.

And I'm not alone. I didn't compile the list below. The person who did is a professional opinion poll designer and operator. The list is on the front page of his business's website: Read more…

US Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla) is a not always well-spoken Congresswoman. Some racist joker on Youtube took one of her short House floor speeches and jazzed it up with loops and splices. A DU jagoff linked to it, and general hilarity
ensued. (I'd quote some of this shit, but then you'd have to ban me.)

But hey, it's a perfectly reasonable post for DU. Because, we all know blacks are stupid and don't know how to talk and we should ridicule them at any opportunity, because that's what Democrats do, right? Right?

Teh stupid! It b-u-u-u-u-r-n-s!

 Read more…