Deep Something

Below is a youtube of a segment from Meet The Press this past Sunday in which E. J. Dionne calls out Sen. Orrin Hatch for the Republican’s continuing bullshit about the use of reconciliation to pass things based on a simple majority vote in the Senate. We need to be discussing policy and health insurance reform (or elimination), but instead, all the Republicans can come up with to try to “win” is to run around like Chicken Little complaining that the sky will fall if some Senate procedure is “out-procedured.”

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The New York Times has a Reuters report that five AIG executives wrote letters on December 1 stating they may quit if their salary and bonuses are cut.The senior executives at American International Group told the insurer last week they may quit if their compensation was cut significantly by the U.S. pay czar, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. I think this would fall under the auspices of that grand old southern phrase, “Well bless their hearts.”

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Although defeated because of eight regressive Democrats in the New York State Senate, straight Senator Diane Savino gives one of the finest floor speeches I’ve ever heard, and does an outstanding job of making the case for the importance of equality for all. This is a must watch.

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Today’s stupid health insurance company tricks includes one lady’s experience of having her insurance company deny paying for the treatment of her broken wrist because it was a “pre-existing condition,” my experience with having denial codes that even the insurance company can’t explain, and the writings of some conservatives who say we can’t reform heath care insurance because it would make a more decent society and let us enjoy more leisure time.

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From time to time I have a discussion of politics with someone at work. He’s very much a conservative Republican. Yesterday our discussion went to how far off the cliff the most extreme elements of theright-wing have gone. He kept insisting there were extremists on the left as well. And now come forth the Psalmists. Apparently they are now printing the phrase, “Psalm 109,” on mouse pads, bumper stickers, and even teddy bears. The Biblical verse Psalm 109: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children become fatherless; and his wife become a widow.”

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We’ve got crazies coming out of the woodwork. In Tampa we have a guy calling 911 for phone sex, and another guy taking a tire iron to a Greek Orthodox Priest (because we all know how easy it is to mistake them for Arab Terrorists), and a “Christian” group wanting to try to incite people to gay bash so they can become martyrs charged under the revised hate crimes law. WWJW

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In the Maine same-sex-marriage campaign 87-year-old Philip Spooner, a World War II veteran spoke in favor of same sex marriage at public hearing at the Augusta Civic Center last spring. Spooner says he is a life-long Republican who believes gay and lesbians should have equal rights. He says it’s what he fought for in WWII, and says he didn’t raise four sons for three of them to have equal rights, and the gay son to be treated differently.

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Republicans sound like they’re conducting a giant experiment in saying whatever they can get away with, and I suspect they’re surprised as any of us by some of the results. That’s probably too harsh, though. What’s worse is that a good chunk of them might believe the stuff they say.

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Wired.com has a story out of Kansas about a copier salesman who is Suing his former employer for wrongful termination. His claim is that his boss sent out e-mail telling employees they would be fired for voting for Obama. I’m not convinced on this one. What do you think about bringing electoral politics into the workplace?

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As usual, Keith Olberman does a good job of explaining the need for healthcare reform, and explaining the public option. Olberman cites a comment by Winston Churchill: Churchill’s argument was this, “I have heard it said that the government had no mandate such a doctrine is wholly inadmissible. The responsibility for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate!”

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CIGNA took in $19.1 billion dollars in revenue last year, with a $292 million dollar income. That doesn’t include the salaries given to people like CEO Ed Hanway. He made a cool $12 million last year, and over the past five years he took in $120 million. Hanway has $28 million in unexcercised stock options.

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There’s no public option in Senator Max Baucus’ Healthcare bill. Instead, we are forced to buy private insurance. This is a major step backwards for the healthcare reform movement! Watch the video and call your senator at (202) 224-3121.

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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explains what a public option for healthcare coverage really means for working people.

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What does UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Hemsley have to lose if Congress passes real healthcare reform this year? Brave New Films is launching a major new campaign to reveal the truth about the health insurance industry, and we need your help to do it. Contribute $25 today so we can create more campaigns exposing the obscene wealth of the CEOs of Aetna, CIGNA, Humana and WellPoint and the policyholders they’ve abandoned for profit.

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Rachael Maddow reports on a survey that says that more than one in three conservatives in New Jersey believe that Obama is the anti-christ. She discusses with Republican operative and former religious right co-founder Frank Schaeffer how we respond to the idiocy. Schaeffer rightly notes that there is a sub-culture within the ultra-conservative evangelical right that is taught from birth to reject fact as a matter of “faith.” These are people who believe the world is only about six billion years old, that humans lived with dinosaurs, and that John F. Kennedy was the anti-christ. He refers to them as a “fifth column of insanity.”

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Al Franken Draws The United States Of America at the SD 29 and Dodge County DFL Joint Fundraiser on April 28, 2007 in Rochester, Minnesota. This is very cool If you have’nt seen this yet.

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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explains what a public option for healthcare coverage really means for working people.Pass it on to everyone you know. We can’t let the insurance companies decide who gets care and who doesn’t.

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State Senator Roy Herron explains why he is a Democrat and how the Democratic Party has helped families like his across Tennessee.

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These are interviews with the 60,00 to 70,000 people who turned out for the big Tea Bagger March in Washington. Apparently, you don’t have to really know anything about what you’re protesting. It’s all just bad because it is Obama, and some industry or media flak like Glenn Beck told you to be mad and scared.

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It is just astonishing to me the complete crap that has been stirred up over the President of the United States offering an address to school students at the beginning of the school year to encourage to stay in school and work hard. Really, does it get any more anti-American than that? Well, if you’re are a conservative Republican it doesn’t, but there really is logic to the Republicans taking the position they have.

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