a second judge goes all american on us

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Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications....

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love, 99
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this is a GOOD thing

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Depressing as it is.

Big legal setback for Obama's health care overhaul
By MARK SHERMAN and ERICA WERNER, Associated Press – 23 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's historic health care overhaul hit its first major legal roadblock Monday, thrown into doubt by a federal judge's declaration that the heart of the sweeping legislation is unconstitutional. The decision handed Republican foes ammunition for their repeal effort next year as the law heads for almost certain eventual judgment by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, a Republican appointee in Richmond, Va., marked the first successful court challenge to any portion of the new law, following two earlier rulings in its favor by Democratic-appointed judges.

The law's central requirement for nearly all Americans to carry insurance is unconstitutional, well beyond Congress' power to mandate, Hudson ruled, agreeing with the argument of Virginia's Republican attorney general — and many of the GOP lawmakers who will take control of the U.S. House in January. Hudson denied Virginia's request to strike down the law in its entirety or block it from being implemented while his ruling is appealed by the Obama administration.

"An individual's personal decision to purchase — or decline to purchase — health insurance from a private provider is beyond the historical reach of the Commerce Clause," said Hudson, a 2002 appointee of President George W. Bush.

Nevertheless, the White House predicted it would prevail in the Supreme Court, although it may be a year or two before the health care law gets there. The next step for the Virginia lawsuit is the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, where Democratic-appointed judges hold a majority.

In an interview with television station WFLA in Tampa, Fla., on Monday, Obama emphasized that other judges had either found the law constitutional or dismissed lawsuits against it.

"Keep in mind this is one ruling by one federal district court. We've already had two federal district courts that have ruled that this is definitely constitutional," Obama said. "You've got one judge who disagreed. That's the nature of these things."

But in the short term, the latest court ruling hands potent ammunition to GOP opponents as they prepare to assert control in the new Congress with promises to repeal the law. Obama in turn has promised to veto any repeal legislation and appears likely to be able to prevail since Democrats retain control of the Senate. Republicans also have discussed trying to starve the law of funding.

Whatever the eventual outcome, Monday's ruling could create uncertainty around the administration's efforts to gradually put into effect the landmark legislation extending health coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. And it can only increase the public's skepticism, which has not significantly receded in the months since the law's enactment, defying Obama's prediction that it would become more popular as the public got to know it.

Obama aides said implementation would not be affected, noting that the individual insurance requirement and other major portions of the legislation don't take effect until 2014.

Underscoring the potential for Hudson's ruling to become a political cudgel for the new Republican House majority, incoming House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, quickly cautioned states against "investing time and resources in Obamacare's implementation now that its central mandate has been ruled unconstitutional."

"Republicans have made a pledge to America to repeal this job-killing health care law, and that's what we're going to do," said Boehner. Calls to repeal the law were a staple of tea party campaign rallies this year.

Other lawsuits are going forward, including one by 20 states that gets under way Thursday in Florida. That suit also challenges whether the federal government can require states to expand their Medicaid programs.

The suit that was decided on Monday had gained a high profile because it was pursued by Virginia's outspoken attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli. The two earlier cases decided in favor of the administration were brought by little-known legal entities.

In his ruling, Hudson largely agreed with Cuccinelli's argument that Congress exceeded its authority, and he dismissed the Justice Department's argument that the insurance-buying requirement would come under the definition of regulating interstate commerce, a power given to Congress by the Constitution.

The mandate for people to buy insurance "is neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution," the judge said.

Hudson limited his ruling to striking down the so-called individual mandate, leaving intact other portions of the law — something supporters cast as a victory. But administration officials and outside analysts agree that important provisions of the legislation could not go forward without the requirement for everyone to be insured. That's because insurers need to have large pools of healthy people, who are cheap to insure, or it is not financially tenable for them to extend coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition or guarantee certain policies to nearly all comers.

Some provisions of the law took effect in September, six months after its passage, including free preventive care, an elimination of lifetime limits on coverage and a requirement for insurers to allow adult children to stay on their parents' health plans until age 26.

Hudson recognized that his would not be the last word on the subject.

"The final word will undoubtedly reside with a higher court," he wrote.

White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle said the administration is encouraged by the two other judges — in Virginia and Michigan — who have upheld the law. She said the Justice Department is reviewing Hudson's ruling.

In contrast to Hudson's ruling, the judges in Michigan and Virginia, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, said the purchase requirement was allowable under the Constitution.

Strike the miserable sucker down and put in Medicare for everyone after we've hogtied all the fascists and dipped them in tar and feathers.

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love, 99
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who even knows anymore?

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My knee wants to jerk up and bash me in the chin so hard it breaks my teeth, but... wow... ya know-oh, it's not bothering to make the trip. With the hash the Democratic-Fascists made of "healthcare reform", Texas might actually do a better job. I'm including my generally negative impression of all things Texas. I didn't forget that. This might even be a good thing for all Texan poor people who have managed not to be executed before they are exonerated....

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love, 99
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i'm not that big on linking glenn anymore

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Not that I don't think he's wonderful, but generally not wonderful enough to go through the ad bullshit and clickage necessary to discern precisely the level of hypnosis at work on several issues. He gets very clear and very tough in spots, and that makes me very happy, but he has not pulled the gloves all the way off... probably even could be said to be prudent and more effective for it, but the glacial pace too many seem resigned to enduring does not cut it. It just does not.

All the fuckers taking refuge in how long it takes to turn the ship of state should be balls to the wall coming up with one that turns on a dime.

Or we're toast.

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love, 99
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oddly, i don't blame this on mcdonald's

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I can blame them for nearly everything wrong with humans, but this one, I feel, is perfectly in keeping with administrative capabilities on display in every corner of our government. It seems even to be one of the steps that don't just follow from the dance we saw on our great entry into the world of civilized nations, but part of it. In fact, I'm kinda wondering why I never took out the time to mention to you that this was the next dance step, cha cha cha....

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love, 99
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dean baker has a particularly clear way of telling it

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Awful as it is these days, this is a good thing. Helps strip away the mold in our brains.
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a kindergartener could have told you this... probably DID....

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And that ain't all.

So, yes, just keep on manufacturing the power to bring it down on yerseff boyz.
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Actually, I can't remember, did anyone at Boston Dot Com ever mention that the insurance companies WROTE the healthcare legislation? Just don't go thinking any of the publications that will be bringing this stuff up are on your side if they didn't tell you what a kindergartener would have been able to tell them to tell you BEFORE that big photo-op lie-fest on the House floor the other night....

And who, beside me and Pro Publica has been screaming about these bullshit "plans" to help the ripped-off homeowners that DO NOT and WERE NOT INTENDED TO help homeowners? ALMOST NO HOMEOWNERS HAVE BEEN HELPED. That's the plan. They just keep generating this crap. Fronts for thin air. The illusion of substance. NOTHING'S BEING DONE. It's the apocalypse out there and what price are these fucks having to pay?

Over and over and over again they paste words on top of boo-boos and continue looting.

PUBLIC APATHY ALLOWS LEADERS TO IGNORE VOTERS... [CIA Report pdf]....

Too much Xanax in yer tap water?
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christopher walken for president

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Might as well have someone dazzlingly entertaining starring in this movie. And let him serve at the head of the More Cowbell Party. I'm sick of these perfidious fucks. Let's get a real public speaker in there....
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too true

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The Health Care Hindenburg Has Landed
By Chris Hedges

Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s decision to vote “yes” in Sunday’s House action on the health care bill, although he had sworn to oppose the legislation unless there was a public option, is a perfect example of why I would never be a politician. I respect Kucinich. As politicians go, he is about as good as they get, but he is still a politician. He has to run for office. He has to raise money. He has to placate the Democratic machine or risk retaliation and defeat. And so he signed on to a bill that will do nothing to ameliorate the suffering of many Americans, will force tens of millions of people to fork over a lot of money for a defective product and, in the end, will add to the ranks of our uninsured.

The claims made by the proponents of the bill are the usual deceptive corporate advertising. The bill will not expand coverage to 30 million uninsured, especially since government subsidies will not take effect until 2014. Families who cannot pay the high premiums, deductibles and co-payments, estimated to be between 15 and 18 percent of most family incomes, will have to default, increasing the number of uninsured. Insurance companies can unilaterally raise prices without ceilings or caps and monopolize local markets to shut out competitors. The $1.055 trillion spent over the next decade will add new layers of bureaucratic red tape to what is an unmanageable and ultimately unsustainable system.

The mendacity of the Democratic leadership in the face of this reality is staggering. Howard Dean, who is a doctor, said recently: “This is a vote about one thing: Are you for the insurance companies or are you for the American people?” Here is a man who once championed the public option and now has sold his soul. What is the point in supporting him or any of the other Democrats? How much more craven can they get?

Take a look at the health care debacle in Massachusetts, a model for what we will get nationwide. One in six people there who have the mandated insurance say they cannot afford care, and tens of thousands of people have been evicted from the state program because of budget cuts. The 45,000 Americans who die each year because they cannot afford coverage will not be saved under the federal legislation. Half of all personal bankruptcies will still be caused by an inability to pay astronomical medical bills. The only good news is that health care stocks and bonuses for the heads of these corporations are shooting upward. Chalk this up as yet another victory for our feudal overlords and a defeat for the serfs.

The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care—$7,129 per capita—although 45.7 million Americans remain without health coverage and millions more are inadequately covered, meaning that if they get seriously ill they are not covered. Fourteen thousand Americans a day are now losing their health coverage. A report in the journal Health Affairs estimates that, if the system is left unchanged, one of every five dollars spent by Americans in 2017 will go to health coverage. Private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume 31 cents of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year, enough, Physicians for a National Health Plan points out, to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans. Check out www.healthcare-now.org. It has some of the best analysis.

This bill is not about fiscal responsibility or the common good. The bill is about increasing corporate profit at taxpayer expense. It is the health care industry’s version of the Wall Street bailout. It lavishes hundreds of billions in government subsidies on insurance and drug companies. The some 3,000 health care lobbyists in Washington, whose dirty little hands are all over the bill, have once more betrayed the American people for money. The bill is another example of why change will never come from within the Democratic Party. The party is owned and managed by corporations. The five largest private health insurers and their trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, spent more than $6 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009. Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug maker, spent more than $9 million during the last quarter of 2008 and the first three months of 2009. The Washington Post reported that up to 30 members of Congress from both parties who hold key committee memberships have major investments in health care companies totaling between $11 million and $27 million. President Barack Obama’s director of health care policy, who will not discuss single payer as an option, has served on the boards of several health care corporations. And as salaries for most Americans have stagnated or declined during the past decade, health insurance profits have risen by 480 percent.

Obama and the congressional leadership have consciously shut out advocates of single payer from the debate. The press, including papers such as The New York Times, treats single payer as a fringe movement. The television networks rarely mention it. And yet between 45 and 60 percent of doctors favor single payer. Between 40 and 62 percent of the American people, including 80 percent of registered Democrats, want universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans. The ability of the corporations to discredit and silence voices that represent at least half of the population is another sad testament to the power of our corporate state to frame all discussions.

Change will come only by building movements that stand in fierce and uncompromising opposition to the Democrats and the Republicans. If they can herd Kucinich and John Conyers, the sponsors of House Resolution 676, a bill that would create a publicly funded National Health Program by eliminating private health insurers, onto the House floor to vote for this corporate theft, what is the point in pretending there is any room left for us in the party? And why should we waste our time with gutless liberal groups such as Moveon.org, which felt the need to collect more than $1 million to pressure House Democrats who had voted “no” on the original bill to recant? What was this purportedly anti-war group doing anyway serving as an obsequious recruiting arm of the Obama election campaign? The longer we tie ourselves to the Democrats and these bankrupt liberal organizations the more ridiculous and impotent we appear.

“I’m ready to listen to the White House, if the White House is ready to listen to the concerns about putting a public option in this bill,” the old Kucinich said on the “Democracy Now!” radio and television program before he flipped. “I mean, they can do that. You know, they’re still cutting last-minute deals. Put the public option back in. Make it a robust public option. Give the people a chance to really negotiate rates with the insurance companies … from the standpoint of having a public option. But don’t just tell the people that you’re going to call this health care reform, when you’re giving insurance companies an even more powerful monopoly status in our economy.”
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ignoring my standard operational apoplexy

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I switched on the House debates and votes... because... of course... they didn't get to it until way later than estimated and I couldn't sleep all the way through it. A few Democrats actually did get up and call it what it is, but only a very few, and the rest of them stood up and spun for all they were worth. Just flat out lied.

Despite having seen really ugly parts of the bill and all those nasty bullet points, I could still feel this dippy old ewe far into my spiritscape trying weakly to prick up her wooly ears to believe the outright horseshit they were drilling... by dint of sheer repetition of patriotic and humanitarian SLOGANS by people who are just out and out LYING... and I have a lot of practice being impervious to that. Evil predators ripping at our suffering and hopes.

Most of the Republicans stood up an lied and lied and lied their mantra, but a few of them ignored the lie mantra and just told the truth... like those few Democrats drowned out by the spin drill. I am grateful for those few on both sides.

Now the millions who have had to sit in ER waiting rooms when they needed care will be able to sit in health clinic waiting rooms and ER waiting rooms and still die of lack of care, and nobody will be bumped for pre-existing conditions, but they won't be able to PAY the premiums to be covered, so they will be in those waiting rooms too.

But the insurance companies just got a monster infusion of new customers they don't have to serve any better than they do now.

It's "historic" all right.

We better hope these two annoying wonks are right about the plan being to get this piece of shit in so that they will have to fix it with something resembling ACTUAL healthcare reform... but... well... I'm not holding my breath.

I will also be SHOCKED if the Republicans challenge its constitutionality, as they were threatening at the tops of their lungs throughout, because, I don't know who they think they're fooling, those lobbyists have been pouring millions of dollars all over each of them too.

Old Silver Tongue says, "This is what change looks like." I'm afraid that's all too true.
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READ THIS!

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READ THIS!

Bury them in emails....

Don't listen to the political mesmerizers! Fuck Kos. Fuck all of Groupthink! THIS IS WRONG! This is SEEEEEERIOUSLY bad. Doesn't matter WHAT party you're in or WHAT way you lean.

THIS IS WRONG! SCREAM BLOODY MURDER!
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look at what they're reconciling — i dare you

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Think maybe signing a petition would help?
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11:52pm: I just got done listening to a couple of wonks who have settled on the notion that passing this shit is going to be a big win for Democratic strategy... that... oh, crap... wait for it... that this wreckage will be such a monster failure it will make it easy to get the stuff we want in to fix it... that this is the plan... the strategy... why we should be stumping for Obamacare.

I'm not kidding.
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yes

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I don't want to hear any bitching against the right wingnuts anymore. Wingnuts dissing wingnuts is just too stupid and hypocritical too be endured. I stopped moderating for Brad and stopped searching for anything good at the rest of Groupthink because my purpose is to be a good friend to you... an actually good friend to you. That they didn't even START with Single Payer on the table was bad enough, but what we are left with, and what Rahm assured Cinderella was true has come true... because of wingnuts... because of partisan dupes getting so caught up in theatrics they can't see at all anymore. I may need a guide dog to drive me to town, but I can see reality plain as day.
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bring back the joker

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It‘s Not That the Health Care Bill Does Too Little Good, It’s That It Does Too Much Harm
By: Jon Walker | Wednesday March 17, 2010 | 1:41 pm

The greatest problem with the Senate health care bill is not that it does “too little” to help people. The problem is that the bill does too many terrible things to help all the bad actors.

The Senate bill further entrenches the private health insurance system. It continues the terrible pattern of privatizing our social safety net in such a way that business skims 20% off the top. It makes sure the big, life saving medications of the future remain incredibly expensive, so as to enrich the drug industry. It takes a giant step towards eroding women’s reproductive rights. It wastes hundreds of millions to fortify the same, broken health care system that is crushing our economy. The worst part is I don’t see anything in this bill that might serve as a path to real reform. There is no public option or Medicare buy-in. There is no proper state single payer waiver. There is no mechanism to move to an all-payer system and/or a clear path to force for-profit companies out of the health insurance market.

I would gladly fight for a smaller health care bill that just gave Medicare to people over 50 who don’t want to keep their current insurance. That would help fewer uninsured people, but would do it the right way. It would be real help, and it would be done in a simple, cost effective, and fiscally conservative manner. It would be a small step, but, importantly, it would be a step in the right direction. That would actually be a health care reform foundation I would be proud to build on.

I have no problem fighting for incremental reform as along as it is improvement done the right way, or at least with a pathway in the right direction. What I do have a real problem with is taking big steps if they are steps in the wrong direction. If anyone can actually explain how this bill, which will funnel hundreds of billions of dollar into private hands, and force millions of Americans to be customers of the same private health insurance companies that helped ruin our health care system, will actually serve as a vehicle for the real reform we will eventually need, I would love to hear it. Personally, I just don’t see how the fight will be easier in the future, once the health insurance industry is a few hundred billion dollars richer, and already has a captive market thanks to the IRS.

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okay okay

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Just DON'T pinch me....
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March 17th, 2010 | 5:42 AM
The Green They Steal, The Greed They Wear
...a St. Patrick's Day lament by Michael Moore

Friends,

It was amazing. Every story on the front page of Monday's New York Times told the story of the Age of Greed during which a system known as capitalism is slowly, but surely, killing us:

Insurance company greed: "Millions Spent to Sway Democrats on Health Care"

War profiteers: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants"

There's no profit in repairing our infrastructure: "Repair Costs Daunting as Water Lines Crumble"

China, the bank: "China Uses Rules on Global Trade to Its Advantage"

You mean NAFTA didn't improve life in Mexico: "Two Drug Slayings in Mexico Rock US Consulate"

What happens when Big Food profits from hurting kids: "Forget Goofing Around: Recess Has New Boss"

There's now a daily parade of news like this -- well, not really "news," more like the media division of large corporations shoving your face into the dirt that is your life. You already know the schools are a disaster and the war is a boon for the Halliburtons and a bust for you. You don't need a newspaper to tell you the roads and electrical lines and the local sewage plant is in miserable disrepair.

And by now you've figured out that you don't really have any say in this, that what we call the "democratic process" is mostly a sham, pretty words that get repeated in the hopes we will all still fall for it. But the fix is in and we don't fall for it anymore. Admit it: Wall Street owns "our" Congress lock, stock and big barrel o' campaign cash. You want a say in this? Well, I don't see you on the Forbes 400, so shut the f@*& up and go fetch me another bottle of bubbly.

Within days, the House of Representatives will vote to pass the Senate health care "reform" bill. This bill is a joke. It has NOTHING to do with "health care reform." It has EVERYTHING to do with lining the pockets of the health insurance industry. It forces, by law, every American who isn't old or destitute to buy health insurance if their boss doesn't provide it. What company wouldn't love the government forcing the public to buy that company's product?! Imagine a bill that ordered every citizen to buy the extended warranty on all their appliances? Imagine a law that made it illegal not to own an iPhone? Or how 'bout I get a law passed that makes it compulsory for every American to go see my next movie? Woo-hoo! Who wouldn't love a sweet set-up like this windfall?

Well, the insurance companies -- get this -- don't like the Democrats' bill! That alone should be reason enough to vote for it.

Now, you would think these thieves would love this bill -- but they are actually fighting it. Why? Because it doesn't give them ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the what they want. It only gives them... 90%! YOU SEE, pure greed demands all or nothing.

The insurance industry hates this bill because it puts a few minor restrictions on them. Six months after its passage they won't be able to deny children coverage if they have a pre-existing condition. How awful! Government interference! SOCIALISM!

But, hey, they'll still be able to deny these children's parents coverage until 2014! So if a parent gets sick and dies in the next four years, I'm sure someone will step in and raise these already-insured orphans.

And how big will the fines be if the insurance companies do deny someone coverage for having a pre-existing condition? Are you sitting down? A hundred dollars a day! That's it! So if you're the insurance company, and Judy is a customer of yours, and Judy needs an operation that will cost $100,000, what do you do? You take the fine! Let's say Judy lives another year after you've sentenced her to death, your $100-a-day fine will only cost you $36,500! That's a savings of $63,500! And trust me, my friends, that's EXACTLY what's going to happen.

There are some good things in this bill. Parents will be able to keep their children on their policy until the kids turn 26. A few things like that. So, yes, pass that.

But don't insult me and 300 million Americans by calling this "health care reform." At least you've stopped calling it "universal health care." We will not have universal health care or anything close to it. I wish the president and the Democratic leadership would just stand up and say, "We're sorry, America. We didn't get the job done you sent us here to do. We're weak and scared and unable to communicate the simplest of messages to the American people. Therefore, our bill will guarantee that 12 million of you will still have NO health insurance. And that's because we have decided to leave the greedy, private insurance industry in charge of our system. Forgive us for this and for continuing to allow profit to be the determining factor as to whether a patient gets the help she or he needs."

Please, Democrats -- just say that -- then pass this poor excuse of a bill. Pass it because, if President Obama takes a fall on this one, I don't know if he'll be able to get back up. And then NOTHING will get done. We can't have that. (And thank you Dennis Kucinich for hanging in there right up to the end and being the only one out of the 435 members to speak the awful truth.)

On the front page of yesterday's New York Times, the dateline was, sadly, once again, "Flint, Michigan." The story was about how doctors are no longer accepting Medicaid patients. Which means tens of thousands of poor can no longer go to the doctor. Last year, the State of Michigan also prohibited doctors from accepting Medicaid patients who had anything wrong with their vision, their hearing, their feet or their teeth. In a 16-county area northwest of Flint, there will soon be not one single hospital that will allow you to give birth there if you're on Medicaid. The official unemployment rate in Flint is 27% (unofficially, closer to 40%).

This is an American tragedy. And, as I've warned you for years, this tsunami is heading your way -- if it's not there already.

I've just turned on my new iPhone and it informs me that it has "apps" it would like to suggest I buy. One is called "Scanner." It will allow me to listen in on police scanners anywhere across the country. I buy the app. I see that the Flint police scanner is part of this. I turn it on out of curiosity. And this is what I hear, at one in the morning: A woman is being beaten by her husband... A home invasion is taking place ("16-year-old black male, wearing a white skull cap")... A child has been missing since noon today... Another woman is being beaten by her boyfriend... A diabetic, obese man is having trouble breathing and needs to be rushed to the hospital (there will be three more of these obese diabetics in the hours to come; the entire town is ill)... One more woman calling, screaming for help, "officers urged to use caution..."

...And on and on and on. This is what I have listened to before going to bed. I am filled with despair and helplessness as I hear my former neighbors crying out for help. I hate it. I have to turn it off. I start to cry. Thank you, iPhone. Thank you, Democrats. I'll sleep better knowing that you're looking out for all of us.

Bastards.
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no wait!

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How 'bout when hell freezes over?

Obama, who's set a Thursday deadline for final passage of his top legislative priority, postponed a trip to Asia by three days to pressure or cajole wavering Democrats.

Clyburn expressed doubt that the House would vote by Thursday. He said lawmakers might have to stay in Washington right up to Easter Sunday, wrangling over their differences, and he wasn't certain the showdown vote would take place by then.

Or when they open Medicare to everyone....
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up from a million and a half to well over four million dollars a day

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And I want to hurl over how partisanship has blinded nearly everyone in America. Do you hear that? You're making me sick!

As the urgency for Democrats increases for the health care overhaul, a pragmatic air is settling in among some Democratic groups that once were lukewarm to the legislation.

Moveon.org, the liberal advocacy group, took a vote of its membership last week and found that 83 percent said the House should pass the Senate bill. Not long ago, the group was urging Democrats to push for a stronger measure that included a public option.

You only want universal care if it won't mean the Democratic Fascists lose votes.

Fuck.
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what's going to happen to the grayson option?

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You should bear in mind that Grayson is polling AMONG REPUBLICANS twice what any of the Republicans running to oppose him are. So this is more evidence that Republicans are not who you've been led to believe they are... and it is more evidence that what I've been saying about broad support for Single Payer among Republicans, and Tea Partiers, is true.

Read the bill....

Track its progress....

Bonus points:

Congressional opponents of the war in Afghanistan forced a debate Wednesday on the floor of the House of Representatives on a resolution to bring U.S. forces home and end the 8-year-old conflict.

The measure ended up losing, 356 to 65, a margin that had been expected.

Grayson was one of these... as, of course, were Kucinich and Paul.
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head shill, rahmbette malden huffington's latest hit job

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There seems to be a great deal of skepticism about Massa's explanation for his departure from Congress. I swallowed hard and listened to the entire interview with Glenn Beck and then this snippet from his appearance with Larry King, and find I believe him about Rahmbo poking him in the chest in the shower, and about why he quit. I don't know if he really did anything so unethical as to sexually harass any staff, but we all know it wouldn't even have come up if he did... unless they wanted to dump his ass. So that part of it is actually moot.

Beck seemed irked that Massa would not dish enough dirt on this mechanism for political hardball, and we all should be irked about that, but no one should be surprised, because the hardball gets exponentially worse, sometimes lethal, when someone attempts to do that.

There is little reasonable doubt that the White House was doing this to him because they are bent on passing this fascist "health" bill, and the head shill for the Democratic Fascist Party is out there with everyone else in Emanuel's pocket to fuck with your head nonstop until he gets his way.
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T-H-E-A-T-E-R ....
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president's lips moving again

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Jocular SOB, ain't he? Once again, here is but one example of how on top of it Firedoglake really is....

T-H-E-A-T-E-R ....
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