US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

Yah but at least no grownup liberal men I know let their mommies pick out their big-boy clothes.

don't judge me

was gonna make a joke about your mother but one of the saddest aspects of aging is the increasing probability that said joke will be answered with "but she's dead", an effective lolkill.

^ does make it awkward in responding to said zings without spoiling light tone too tbf

aging: providing partial zing-protection since the dawn of time

lol u old, ironically, never gets old.

Don't worry, if I met one of these felch-holes in person I would have zero problem with a dozens-style takedown of 'dead mom' eg. 'you killed her by remaining a virgin'.

Hey Max:

xpost to Max--Re reconciliation I was talking about this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/health/policy/19health.html?ref=todayspaper

Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.

Officials said that the White House would post the president’s plan on the Internet by Monday morning. But even as Mr. Obama tries to unite his party behind a single plan, it is unclear that Democrats can muster the needed votes in the House and the Senate given the tense political climate of a midterm election year.

dude is just butthurt about past female noncompliance with his getting-laid agenda

lolz well done A+ Suzy

basically Obama's stepping in with an "okay, you fuckwits can't get it together, now HERE'S WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN" approach

like we've all been waiting for for like 10 months?

Personally I'm loving the editorial tone when, finally, the people/Obama are clearly FUCK A TENSE POLITICAL CLIMATE.

i wonder if wolf blitzer will approve

i believe the idea is that obama is putting forward a version of a compromise-between-senate-and-house-bills bill:

The president’s plan would require most Americans to obtain health insurance or face financial penalties; it would bar insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions, and it would give tax subsidies to help moderate-income people buy private insurance.

Officials said the president’s bill was expected to include a version of the Senate’s proposed tax on high-cost, employer-sponsored insurance policies. It would reflect a deal reached with labor union leaders to limit the impact of the tax on workers.

Eh, whatever. I'll believe it when I see, and so on.

I'm betting Max is probably pretty close to what will come out - public option is a pipe dream at this point.

tax on high-cost, employer-sponsored insurance policies

totally not down with this btw

haha i just copied and pasted from the ny times

not planning on getting in an argument about the excise tax but--it totally sucks that working-class and labor will get hit hard with that but its one of the bills best ways to bend the cost curve

Meanwhile Dick Armey, clad in a big cowboy hat, wants to throw seniors under the bus.

Former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey said in an interview that Republicans would be wise to talk straight about making cuts to Social Security and Medicare if they really want to cut the deficit.

TPMDC interviewed Armey at CPAC yesterday, and we asked him about Rep. Paul Ryan's budget roadmap we've been following that cuts privatizes Social Security and creates a voucher system for Medicare.

Armey (R-TX) was an architect of the Contract with America that helped Republicans win control of Congress in 1994. When we asked, he at first danced around the issue but then agreed "Yes," the Ryan plan is the smart way to go if the GOP is "courageous."

"In the year 2009 mandatory government spending took 100 percent of all federal revenue," Armey said. "If you're not courageous enough to look at mandatory spending the two biggest components being Medicare and Social Security, then don't tell me you're serious about fighting the deficit. You've got to put reforms in there."

"would be wise"

takes real courage to steal from old people

next they'll recommend taking candy from babies

i love that the deficit busters are the same people who want to make the bush tax cuts permanent... it's like..... hello is anyone home

Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey said in an interview that Republicans would be wise to talk straight about making cuts to Social Security and Medicare if they really want to cut the deficit.

yeah idiots. can't have imprudent tax cuts & "git yer gubmint out of my SS & medicare" so, um at least he's not lying for once...

i love that the deficit busters are the same people who want to make the bush tax cuts permanent

If we starve Grandma, we can keep the cuts.

lets just shoot grandma now, eat some babies, and be done with it

i keep thinking that the republican party cant possibly get any more morally or intellectually vacuous, and yet somehow it keeps sinking deeper and deeper into a black hole of utter incoherence

serious question: in the absence of fox news, talk radio, and an establishment media whose political coverage is predicated on a concept of objectivity-as-letting-both-sides-talk-at-length, would the GOP have any kind of political hope right now?

Never underestimate uneducated American venality, max.

Not too pleased about Cadillac tax because employers who might otherwise hire someone with a disability might not, due to their insurance costs. My possibly unique take on this is to get employers out of the heath provision quandary somehow, via a payroll tax. I do not want my medical history being potentially up for discussion in employment negotiations.

well--the hope with the cadillac tax is that it acts a crowbar to start pulling apart employment and health-care coverage

also, correct me if im wrong, but isnt it illegal for employers to ask about your medical history or deny you employment based on (certain) medical conditions?

Yes it might be illegal, but there are...ways. Friend with epilepsy has been stung a few times but not in so many actionable words.

I'm due a chat with best friend in DC, who might actually know what's going on behind the scenes on both sides and report to thread for Monday. Am now going to have a pre-birthday outing fashion attack...

yeah there are definitely ways to assess someone's medical situation w/o being so brazen as to ask about it directly. also, it's technically allowed for certain kind of work

(epileptics can't get commercial driver's licenses, iirc)

Yeah, and people who have ever had kidney stones can't get a pilot's license, if memory serves.

really? is that a 'weed out the drunks' kind of thing?

right, that's why i said 'certain.' im just thinking--if there are already extralegal ways to deny ppl employment based on their medical records im not sure that the excise tax will do much to change that situation or make it easier.

kidney stones + no pilot's license is........i'm having trouble parsing that one. like, they are in no way exclusive to drunks??

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/19/stephen-baldwin-on-obama_n_468692.html

Sudden debilitating pain that makes one unable to function and can strike without warning is contra-indicated for people operating multi-ton vehicles through thin air with hundreds of innocent lives on board, iirc.

My dad fulfilled all his training hours for his pilot's license, proved at great length that he was no longer at risk for (another) heart attack (another risk factor that bars you), only to be denied with no option to appeal b/c of having had kidney stones in the past.

Homey' is short for 'homeboy,' slang for a fellow gang member.

rrreally

this just in: Stephen Baldwin is a tool

that's just in?

i mean i should probably know this (renal final in a week) but it seems like the chances of a recurrent MIs are higher than recurrent nephrolithiasis??? like just keep yr serum calcium monitored and you'll be hunky dory

anyway

Baldwin is fresh from his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, where he specifically got voted off for being an overbearing Christianist tool.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/02/19/quote_of_the_day.html

CPAC is just traet after traet

but again, you read shit like this, and you're like, how are democrats getting rolled by these people?

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu92/damien_stone/him2076_450.jpg

Q:but again, you read shit like this, and you're like, how are democrats getting rolled by these people?

A: fox news, talk radio, and an establishment media whose political coverage is predicated on a concept of objectivity-as-letting-both-sides-talk-at-length,

Christianist? Is that like a Scientologist? Republicanist? Democraticist?

dunno the context but it's probably like "islamist?"

it means he is a soldier in the army of the lord.