September 21st, 2009
7:13 am

Looking forward to your next thesis.

Since it’s still free swim, quite literally today… saw this and think the Post editorialist got an awful lot right.

Sure, some of it’s about race. But more than that, it’s about fear and insecurity.

This Anger Isn’t Just In Black And White

[I]t would be a mistake to feel disdain for these guys, for their buffoonish chanting was only one side of them, and not necessarily the dominant one. They haven’t curdled into fascists, as some on the left seemed to think. More likely, the thwarted decency in them is trying to find a political home, a sense of civic standing that is slipping away.

And now, such individuals are looking for someone or something to blame. With encouragement from Rush Limbaugh and some Republican leaders, they’re taking the path of least resistance and blaming an easy mark — a government they can vote out of office, a leader who looks unfamiliar — rather than the immense, private bureaucracies they’re beholden to, can’t touch at the polls and will find even harder to resist if John Roberts’s Supreme Court voids restrictions on corporate “free speech” in campaigns.

Some of them listen to Limbaugh while commuting to work or driving anxiously from one job interview to another, and they recycle his wisdom as their own at the bar, the family dinner table or the diner in western Massachusetts where I sometimes have breakfast. Racism, sexism, Islam, “big government” — anything will serve, if it spares them having to face being had by the unaccountable powers and riptides that are destroying their dreams.

Who wants to verbally spar? Think about it. I’m a MD and know how to write. Do you really want to go there?

Bruno who?

“Instead of debating whether to give McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, more troops, the discussion in the White House is now focused on whether, after eight years of war, the United States should vastly expand counterinsurgency efforts along the lines he has proposed — which involve an intensive program to improve security and governance in key population centers — or whether it should begin shifting its approach away from such initiatives and simply target leaders of terrorist groups who try to return to Afghanistan.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/20/AR2009092002878_pf.html

WASHINGTON (AP) – Despite predictions the Great Recession is running out of steam, the House is taking up emergency legislation this week to help the millions of Americans who see no immediate end to their economic miseries. A bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNEMPLOYMENT_BENEFITS?SITE=GACAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-09-21-05-17-18

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says requiring people to get health insurance and fining them if they don’t would not amount to a backhanded tax increase. “I absolutely reject that notion,” the president said. -Urinal

Aahhh, yes, Baghdad Bob gives us a news update.

“The South is a little bit behind in how we handle the animal population, but we are getting there,” said Don Bruce, operations manager of Cobb’s animal control service. “We are taking baby steps.”

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-dogs-adopted-by-142702.html

2. Tort reform will do nothing to lower insurance costs to the consumer. Previous state experience has demonstrated that fact. However, it may make physicians a little more wealthy by virtue of lowering malpractice premiums. The cost to the consumer will be whatever legal rights they had to sue physicians for gross negligence.

These arguments are all dodges put forth by opponents of health care reform. Like Boehner, they want to “fix” an unfixable system–keep the insurance money flowing into campaign coffers while consumers get nailed to the wall.