brainiac conspiracy

Spousal Abuse We Can Believe In

More awesomeness from the greatest healthcare system on the planet:

Insurance companies have used the excuse of "pre-existing conditions" to deny coverage to countless Americans. From cancer patients to the elderly suffering from arthritis, these organizations have padded their profit margins by limiting coverage to patients deemed "high risk" because of their medical condition.

But, in DC and nine other states, including Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming, insurance companies have gone too far, claiming that "domestic violence victim" is also a pre-existing condition.

In reality, the problem likely extends far beyond those individual states. Whole regions of the country are suffering from a lack of adequate health coverage.

When applying for insurance, individuals often sign a release to permit insurers access to such medical records. Until very recently, no laws specifically outlawed discrimination by insurance carriers against survivors of domestic violence. An informal survey in 1994 by the staff of the Subcommittee on crime and Criminal Justice of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that 8 of the 16 largest insurers in the country used domestic violence as a factor when deciding whether to issue insurance and how much to charge. This could have an even greater impact on rural communities, which typically have higher rates of uninsured and underinsured and lower incomes. That makes purchasing insurance in rural areas more difficult and the prospect of being denied coverage due to new underwriting criterion may only exacerbate the problem.

Many recent laws and legislative proposals prohibit insurers from using domestic violence as a basis for underwriting or rating insurance, but the matter is far from settled. The advent of managed care has already contributed to the instability of health care coverage in many rural areas, as third party payers have abandoned entire communities in pursuit of profits. Possible insurance discrimination only complicates an already complex financial picture for rural residents. (Emphasis added.)

Again, it all comes down to the bottom line for our awesomest-of-all-time free-enterprise system:

The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.

Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero. (Emphasis added.)

In his speech to Congress the other night, President Obama said he had no desire to put private health-insurance companies out of business. Perhaps he should reconsider. I'll trade him 700,000 broke patients for 700 broke insurance executives any day. And so, I suspect, would most of the people who voted for him last November.

---Vitelius

Crap Detector of the Day Award

The last mainstream columnist who you'd ever suspect of going there, actually goes there:

I've been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer -- the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids -- had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids -- from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson's shocking disrespect for the office of the president -- no Democrat ever shouted "liar" at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq -- convinced me: Some people just can't believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

And bully for MoDo for going there. Because it needed to be said----not by cranky old lefties by me, by pundits not already known to be Angry Liberals Consumed by Irrational Bush Hatred™.

And speaking of irrational . . . .

And what do all these photos have in common?

Yeah you guessed it: the only colored folks in sight are pictures on picket signs. Stay classy, boys.

---Vitelius

This is Better Than Any Real News Network

If you are possessed of any---repeat, any---deep-seated sentiments, feelings or emotions that are triggered by memories of the tragedy of 9/11, do not watch this video. If you're like me, however . . . Either way, you have been warned.

---Vitelius

Your TARP Dollars at Work, or, The UtterAwesomeness of Affordable Worker Housing

Green shoots galore!

A Wells Fargo & Co. executive who oversees foreclosed properties hosted parties and spent long summer weekends in a $12 million Malibu beach house, moving into the home just after it had been surrendered to Wells Fargo to satisfy debts, neighbors said.

The previous owners of the beachfront home in Malibu Colony -- a densely built stretch of luxury homes that has been a favorite of celebrities over the years -- were financially devastated in Bernard Madoff's massive fraud scheme, real estate agent Irene Dazzan-Palmer said.

The couple signed the property over to Wells Fargo last spring, and the bank subsequently denied requests to show the house to prospective buyers, Dazzan-Palmer said.

Residents in the gated community told the Los Angeles Times that a woman they believe was Cheronda Guyton took up occupancy at the home in May. Residents said they obtained Guyton's name from the community's guards, who had issued her a homeowner's parking pass.

Residents also wrote down the license plate number of a 2007 Volvo sport-utility vehicle they say was parked in the home's garage. A check of state motor vehicle license plates by the Times found the vehicle was registered to Guyton.

Guyton is a Wells Fargo senior vice president responsible for foreclosed commercial properties, resident Phillip Roman said. (emphasis added.)

Bwahahahahahahahhahaaaaa!!!

So now that the squat's been exposed . . .

The bank's agreement with the prior owner required it to keep the home -- a 3,800-square-foot, two-story structure built in the early 1990s -- off the market for a period of time, Wells Fargo said in the statement. The bank said it planned to list the property for sale soon.

No they're not. They're sitting on that toxic piece of crap like they are sitting on thousands of other properties in Southern California---to keep from taking the brutal write-downs required to move an overpriced hunk of stucco and glass such as that in a market that hasn't seen bottom yet. Look at it this way: it's one thing, for instance, to put up some $300,000 tract home that's been sitting on the market for six months in the 909 area code for a $199,000 short sale. You take a loss, but it's not too onerous to the bottom line, and you get some inventory off your books. With an expensive property like this, well, sure, you could get lucky right away and find an NBA star, a talk-show host, or a CEO to take the property off your hands, but how many prospective buyers are you talking about there? As a alternative, ever try short-selling a $12 million beach house? Why even bother? Why not just sit on the property and keep it off your books for a year or two until the taxpayers Treasury picks up the tab at a more favorable price? Until then, call up your friends, fire up the barbecue, and let's partayyyyy!!

The truly scary thing is, this is happening right now in the upper end of the real-estate market. You know, the sector that was supposed to be "recession-proof?" Guess again.

Looking to buy a home? Hey, if you pay taxes and you wait long enough, you will probably get to buy into a lovely $12 million piece of beachfront property in the chi-chi Malibu Colony. Only you won't get to live in it. Suckers.

And for those of you keeping score at home:

Wells Fargo
Committed: $25,000,000,000
Returned: $0
Revenue to Gov't: $684,027,777

And here is the most awesome kicker of all: in the banking business, these guys are considered among the better actors:

Lawsuits aside, it is worth noting that many banking analysts see Wells Fargo as an institution that knows how to run a large retail banking operation. And while it has had some bumps on its balance sheet, the bank remains a bright spot in the financial industry.

Bart Narter, Senior Vice President of the Banking Group at Celent, believes much of the bad publicity is overblown. Narter added that within the industry the bank is "considered more competent than most."

Bwahahahahahahahhaaaa!!! Our time as a First-World country is nearing its conclusion. It was kinda cool while it lasted.

Update: Ezra Klein reminds us that sometimes in politics, it really is a matter of timing:

This is one of the few places where I think the administration made a serious error in timing. Financial regulation reform was the natural partner for the bailouts. It was the only policy package that offered the hope of a sort of political closure for an angry public. The bailouts might have been necessary, but they were galling. A new regulatory approach, however, would at least have let the Obama administration argue that Wall Street had been badly punished, and a new norm had been quickly established. As it was, the bailouts just hung there, alongside AIG's compensation packages and news of Goldman Sachs recovering to post record profits and the American people facing down a record deficit. The angry public never received any satisfaction. Obama famously told the banks that he was all that was standing between them and the pitchforks, and he was right. But that's not a popular place to stand unless you have some alternative method of satisfying the mob.

The end result was that the Wall Street rescue was very loud and very swift, while regulation is happening very quietly, and rather late. The arguments for this are what they are: Time was needed to do it right, bandwidth was needed for issues such as health care, and the market's recovery was fragile. But politically, it robbed the American people of closure, and left a simmering anger that Wall Street had fleeced the country. Which it had.

----Vitelius

Do Us a Favor. Secede Already

This time for good.

In Washington, Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina was sharply criticized by both Democrats and his fellow Republicans for shouting “You lie!” during President Obama's health care address on Wednesday. But here in his strongly Republican Congressional district on Thursday, he was celebrated by many of his constituents for his outburst.

"Yeah, it was rude, but somebody needed to say it," said Susan Wahl, 41, a homemaker in this town of 800 outside Columbia. "Ordinary people can't just get up and tell Obama he lied. He said something we all wanted to say" . . .

"Give Obama hell," said Bob Allen, 52, a construction worker in Columbia. "I'm proud of my congressman."

Marie Briggs, 77, a retiree from Sumter, which is in a different district, said, "I guess you would say it was a mite disrespectful, but I say, 'All the way.' "

Now, I know it's easy to oversimplify, as the Times does here, based on interviews with a handful of people---especially when one consider that Joe Wilson appears to have become something of a political liability overnight in his own district. But the "liar" incident does remind us, intemperately as it should, that the Palmetto State has been a particularly toxic irritant to the American body politic for over two centuries.

Thomas Jefferson removed condemnations of slavery from the Declaration of Independence to appease South Carolinian slaveholders. State loyalists helped the British recapture the state in 1780 from the patriots. By 1828, state icon and Vice President John C. Calhoun was advocating state "nullification" of federal powers.

In 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede -- and even threatened to secede from the Confederacy because the other southern states refused to re-open the slave trade. In 1856, on the Senate floor Congressman Preston Brooks bloodied an abolitionist senator with a cane.

Well into the 20th century, South Carolina's black citizens observed the Fourth of July mostly alone; the vast majority of whites preferred instead to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day. In 1920, the state legislature rejected the women's suffrage amendment, finally ratifying it a half century later.

In 1948, the same year the South Carolina legislature declared President Harry Truman's civil rights commission "un-American," segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond was the States' Rights Democratic Party presidential nominee.

Were it not for a facing-saving political intervention, the Clarendon County school district, not Topeka's, would have been forever remembered as the defendant in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. And when Congress passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Palmetto State became the first to challenge its constitutionality in court.

Mr. Wilson's outburst was typical of politicians from a state that have resisted policy progress in the United States whether for minorities, women, the disempowered or, now, the uninsured.

Nullification. Secession. Sexism. Racism. And decade after decade of fighting, fighting, fighting against standards of comity that the rest of the nation had adopted years earlier. (I mean, honestly---50 years to ratify women's suffrage?) How much more political awesomeness can you stand in a single blog post? I need to take a break on the Appalachian Trail.

---Vitelius

Reflections

Rolled out of bed shortly before six. Brewed a pot of coffee and fired up my first-generation iMac in the den of my house in Oakland. When the Yahoo! home page loaded, I didn't believe what I saw: "Somebody's hacked them, it's a sick hoax." But over the next half hour, as I jumped around the Web to a series of other news sources---the New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Washington Post---and saw the same screaming headlines ("Airliners Crash Into Trade Center: Terror Attack Suspected") and the same eerie images of the towers belching smoke, I slowly came to realize what had actually happened.

And then the thought dawned on me: Well, whaddaya know. They finally got us.

After decades of propping up torturers in Cairo and Riyadh, engineering coups in Baghdad and Tehran, selling guns and chemicals to crooks in Baghdad before attempting to starve their subjects into submission, rattling the saber at Iranian theocrats while trading them weapons for cash, trading with rightist warlords in Lebanon and Afghanistan, launching preemptive bombing raids on Baghdad and Khartoum, and aiding and abetting the imposition of apartheid in the West Bank . . .

Well, whaddaya know, they finally got us. Sad, tragic, monstrously cruel and unforgivable, yes, but all utterly avoidable and entirely foreseeable.

Emotions? I can't say I really felt any. Not anger, nor sorrow, nor rage, nor a desire for vengeance---just a certain sense of helplessness that was tempered by wondering whether we as Americans would learn anything at all from this senseless tragedy, and whether we'd even care to think about changing the way that we and our elected leaders treat the rest of the world. I know that may sound somewhat cold-hearted, but that's just the way I felt back then.

Suddenly I remembered who our President and Vice President were. And that's when I grew fearful. Eight years later, at least I don't have to worry about that kind of reaction if we happen to get hit again.

---Vitelius

This Has Got to Be, Beyond a Doubt,the Most Awesome Dinner Date Ever

But I've still got a fiver says she never shows up.

---Vitelius

Report: Awesomeness of Tax Cuts Confirmed

For all the fear expressed of late by economists of a Japan-style "lost decade" that's the probable result of bubble-fueled, mega-trillion-dollar bank bailouts combined with high unemployment and staggeringly high federal deficits . . . well, seems to me we've been living in one the last ten years already:

The typical American household made less money last year than the typical household made a full decade ago.

To me, that's the big news from the Census Bureau's annual report on income, poverty and health insurance, which was released this morning. Median household fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295. All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.

In the four decades that the Census Bureau has been tracking household income, there has never before been a full decade in which median income failed to rise.

But tax cuts create jobs! And wealth! And tax receipts! And . . . never mind.

This isn't stopping some financial geniuses out here in California who've been tasked by our most awesomest Governor with fixing our tax code and raising added revenues. Their recommendations for a state that's already $16 billion in the hole, furloughing state employees, and shutting down state parks:

• Lower personal income tax for all filers, phased in over three years through 2014. Single filers would have an automatic deduction of $22,500, while joint filers would have an automatic deduction of $45,000. Filers would pay 2.75 percent on taxable income up to $28,000 single and $56,000 joint. They would pay 6.5 percent on all taxable income above those levels.The only itemized deductions for filers would be mortgage interest, property taxes and charitable contributions.

The current state income tax bracket tops out at 9.55 percent (which includes a .25 percent temporary increase approved in February). Millionaires pay an additional 1 percent on income above $1 million, and they would continue to pay that under the new plan.

While all tax filers would pay lower taxes, the commission's Powerpoint presentation shows that the new lower tax brackets make the system less progressive in nature. The drop to 6.5 percent from 9.55 percent is most significant for higher-income earners, who already pay most of the state's personal income taxes. While filers earning between $50,000 and $75,000 would get a 14 percent cut on their taxes, those earning $75,000 and above would get roughly a 30 percent reduction.

• Business taxes. The state would eliminate the corporation tax immediately in 2012. It would phase out the 5 percent state sales tax share from 2012 to 2016. Retailers would still charge sales taxes that pay for local governments.

• To make up for the loss of corporation and sales tax revenue, the state would install a new business net receipts tax, essentially a value-added tax that firms doing business in California would pay on all revenues minus capital expenditures. The proposed rate is 4.2 percent, lower than the current corporation and sales tax rates. Businesses with less than $500,000 in revenues or $250,000 in tax liabilities would be exempt.

Oh, and they're big on offshore oil drilling, too.

Then again, this is what you get when you load up your commission with three private-equity guys, two pinheads from the Hoover Institute, a banker, a Chamber of Commerce guy, a GOP political operative, one community organizer, one UC college professor . . . you get the picture: A genuinely representative cross-section of today's Californians.

Jesus. These people never fucking learn, do they?

---Vitelius

The Money Quote

On a night when so much collective right-wing rage was laid bare for the nation, following a summer of 'bagging, birthing, and other manifestations of cynically manufactured mass psychosis, it was certainly prescient that President Obama concluded his speech with the following 'graph. A simple plea for civility in our political discourse such as this has needed to be said for years, and others have surely done so, but I can't think of anyone who has done it more eloquently and directly in the recent past than he did last night.

You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter -- that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.

Obama couldn't have found a better foil than Rep. Joe Wilson at a more opportune time, could he?

And ugly events sometimes produce positive outcomes after all. Click here, and you can make your contribution as well.

--Vitelius

Hump Day Health Care Dinnerblog

Logged between rounds in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do with these bay scallops for dinner tonight . . . maybe a Sichuan stir-fry in black bean sauce?

5:10 pm: As many times as Obama has disappointed me these last nine months, every time I see him flash that smile when he walks into a room, I'm still glad he's the President. Considering the alternative also.

5:20 pm: Raising the stakes out of the gate: "I'm not the first President to have wrestled with this problem, but I am determined to be the last one."

5:30 pm: Wow, doubling down with the moral imperative for covering the underinsured: "No one should treated like that in America." Very strong opener thus far.

5:32 pm: Positioning his proposal as the "centrist" solution between single-payer and pure privatization. How the Republicans rebut this without any concrete policy positions of their own, I have no idea, but I'm sure there will be plenty of TV pundits who will take their empty objections with all the seriousness that they would if William F. Buckley arose from the dead to apologize for the brattiness of his political spawn.

5:35 pm: "Against the law . . . preexisting conditions." "No one should go broke because . . . " Hitting all the right emotional hot buttons.

5:36 pm: I've got these lovely heirloom tomatoes from the farmer's market. Maybe a quick garlic and red-wine sauce with some penne rigate . . .

5:37 pm: Co-opting a McCain proposal . . . accompanied by the sounds of winger heads exploding throughout the land. Nice segue, to a call for shared sacrifice via mandatory coverage.

5:38: Wonder how Saxby Chambliss feels about Obama's "cynical and irresponsible" death-panel charge? And what asshole started heckling the President in the middle of his illegal immigration debunking? Good to see he was shouted down by his peers.

5:40 pm: "Hold them accountable." This is the Obama we have been waiting for all summer . . .

5:42 pm: On the other hand, broiled scallops with bacon doesn't sound too shabby. Nah, the weather's too hot to turn on the broiler.

5:45 pm:Once again, positioning himself between the progressives and the wingers as the sensible centrist. Big applause here. Thus far, this has been a powerful and forceful presentation.

5:50 pm: I think I figured it out. Obama has jettisoned the restrained and self-neutering "presidential"-type speech he's been churning out lately. This bears a much closer resemblance, in tone and delivery, to one of his campaign stump speeches from last spring. Hey, it worked wonders then.

5:50 pm: A master stroke connecting subsidies for prescription drugs for seniors to cost controls. And concluding the argument by reminding seniors who's been trying to privatize Medicare for decades.

5:52 pm: Then again, I could use up some of this brandy one my friends gave me and flambee the scallops. No freedom fries to serve 'em with, though.

5:53 pm: Co-opting the Republicans on malpractice litigation---generating applause from the GOP without ever having to mention the words "tort reform."

6:00 pm: The last 10 minutes of this have gone beyond the stump to something much closer to last year's "More Perfect Union" speech---less a call for healthcare reform as an issue of policy but as a transcendent issue of civic morality and decency---"the character of our country," as he paraphrased Ted Kennedy. His tone was urgent and insistent, yet not hectoring or bullying, throughout the presentation. I'll write in greater detail later---or perhaps tomorrow, after I've had some time to ruminate on it---but this was, at least to these ears, a home run speech. I'll be curious to see how the usual chuckleheads try to spin it on the talk shows later. For now, I gotta go cook some scallops.

---Vitelius

In re Citizens United: The Spooge Also Rises

We covered this in brief a little while ago, but in case you had any doubts, the fix is in:

The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may let businesses and unions spend freely to help their favored candidates in time for next year's elections. Such a step could roll back a century of attempts to restrain the power of corporate treasuries in American politics.

The justices cut short their summer recess for a lively special argument that indicated the court's conservative skeptics of campaign finance laws have the upper hand over its liberals, including new Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the high court's swing vote, but a firm opponent of many campaign restrictions, at one point told the government's lawyer, "Corporations have lots of knowledge about environment, transportation issues, and you are silencing them during the election."

Just in case you didn't know, Justice Kennedy is here to remind you: corporations can't get a break in the Beltway.

The major issue, at least in terms of counting votes, is whether two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, are willing to overrule the earlier decisions.

Both justices spoke at length in their Senate confirmation hearings about the importance of abiding by precedents -- even if they would have voted the other way had they been involved in an earlier decision.

But on Wednesday neither displayed any reluctance to join the other three conservatives, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Kennedy, who are on record opposing the restrictions on corporate and union spending.

Alito pointed out that more than half the states, including California, allow corporations to campaign for and against candidates.

"Have they all been overwhelmed by corruption?" he asked.

Gee, I dunno, Einstein. Let's ask this guy:

In July---two days after Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Republican leader Sam Blakeslee put [Michael] Duvall on the Rules Committee that oversees member ethics---the second-term, conservative, Republican assemblyman sat in a public hearing and vividly described lewd details about his trysts with a female lobbyist whose clients had business before another committee on which Duvall sits . . .

"She wears little eye-patch underwear," said Duvall, who is married with two children. "So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And‚ so, we had made love Wednesday--a lot! And so she'll, she's all, 'I am going up and down the stairs, and you're dripping out of me!' So messy!"

The assemblyman representing Anaheim, Fullerton, Placentia, Orange, Brea, La Habra and Yorba Linda then offered clues to the identity of his sex partner.

"And so her birthday was Monday," he said at the Wednesday, July 8 committee hearing. "I was 54 on June 14, so for a month, she was 19 years younger than me" . . . According to voter-registration records reviewed by the Weekly, veteran Sacramento-based lobbyist Heidi DeJong Barsuglia turned 36 years old on Monday, July 6. Legislative sources say they have witnessed Duvall, who is vice chairman of the Assembly's powerful Committee on Utilities Commerce, socializing after-hours with Barsuglia.

In April---two months after Duvall became vice chairman of the Utilities & Commerce committee---privately owned California utility giant Sempra Energy hired Barsuglia as one of its top lobbyists, according to Secretary of State records . . . The San Diego-based utility conglomerate isn't shy about lobbying lawmakers for favorable treatment. This session, they gave Duvall $1,500 in campaign contributions.

But, but, but . . . but I thought America's corporations were being muzzled by . . . never mind

You know, for guy who almost surely lied under oath at his confirmation hearings, and who was appointed to the Supreme Court by a president who transformed his Justice Department into a political patronage operation, turned the Interior Department into a interagency frat party, lied a nation into a needless war under fraudulent pretenses, and approved the use of torture in the interrogation of prisoners, Sam Alito is one of the last guys on the planet who should be waxing naive about corruption in government. He and his Federalist Society buddies owe their entire careers on the federal bench to it.

---Vitelius

Beyond Tone-Deaf

Max Baucus, Senator from the buttfuck state of Anaconda, home to one-quarter of one percent of the population of the US, and which no one outside of it but fly fishermen and Frank Zappa fans gives a rat's ass about: you are the most totally awesome Senator in the history of the Republic:

FINES PROPOSED FOR
GOING WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE

Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as divisions among Democrats undercut President Barack Obama's effort to regain traction on his health care overhaul . . .

The latest proposal: a ten-year, $900-billion bipartisan compromise that Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a moderate who heads the influential Finance Committee, was trying to broker. It would guarantee coverage for nearly all Americans, regardless of medical problems.

But the Baucus plan also includes the fines that Obama has rejected. In what appeared to be a sign of tension, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs pointedly noted that the administration had not received a copy of the plan before it leaked to lobbyists and news media Tuesday . . .

Just as auto coverage is now mandatory in nearly all states, Baucus would require that all Americans get health insurance once the system is overhauled. Penalties for failing to do so would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level -- about $66,000 for a family of four -- would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.

Way to control the message, asshat.

Do people like Max Baucus never stop to think about how their legislation is going to play in the public arena once the details leak out? And yes, that includes Limbaugh, and Beck, and the rest of Fox News thugs. Not that they won't attack any piece of Democratic healthcare legislation, because they will. And that's why you don't attach punitive amendments like imposing fines on working-class people who refuse to purchase government-mandated health insurance from some for-profit corporation without something of tangible value in return. Not only are you telling your own constituents to go fuck themselves, you are giving the crazies on Fox the fig leaf they need to cloak themselves in the blue-collar garment of the Real Americans, the middle-class people who go to work every day and pay their taxes and obey the rules . . . and this is how the Democrats show their appreciation to you, the hardworking people of America! By forcing you to buy into their vision of Obamacare! We warned you people, they are now mandating insurance. How much longer before they mandate who your doctor is, and what kind of treatments you get? Socialism, totalitarianism, this is how it always starts . . .

And you just handed them this meme-o-licious club so they can beat you and Obama like a baby seal.

I really can't wait to hear this message being echoed across the airwaves ad nauseum for the next 48 hours, and being regurgitated via the usual mainstream news outlets in above-fold analyses headlined "Conservatives See Unfairness in Latest Democrat Health Proposal." Way to doom your own "bipartisan" legislation, you fucking fool.

Moral to this story: Senate Democrats, do not---repeat, do not---entrust the writing of your most significant, historic piece of domestic social legislation in the last 60 years to some guy from the sticks who in a Euro-parliamentary system would be a career backbencher but who gets to wield gavels and command power simply because he's gotten re-elected more times than anyone else on the Senate Finance Committee. Next time, leave it to someone who represents a state with a few million people, and a few million casualties of America's for-profit healthcare system, who are actually living and getting sick and dying for lack of coverage in it.

---Vitelius

The ABCs of Winger-Style Fascism

Over at Balloon Juice today, John Cole wants to know the identity of the first whackjob to find the hidden coded messages in Obama's upcoming speech to schoolkids, the text of which was released this afternoon. Well, I know I'm already too late to be the first to chime in, but I feel it's my patriotic duty on this holiday to be the most comprehensive. So, channeling my inner Beckster, a preemptive Live Blog of tomorrow's speech from the mind of a closet lizard-brain. I'll bet dollars to donuts what we'll be reading at least one of these takes, in one version or another, from one or more of the deep thinkers at The Corner or Red State tomorrow night because their cognitive function is so robotic, it only takes a few seconds to figure out how they'll respond to anything Obama says, no matter how innocuous. So as a public service, here we go:

The President: Hello everyone -- how's everybody doing today? I'm here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade.I'm glad you all could join us today.

Did anyone ask if they had a choice in the matter? I mean, we're talking about impotent administrators around the country being held hostage by tyrannical teachers' unions. Funny how he doesn't mention that . . .

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten . . .

Dear God, they're letting him indoctrinate 5-year-olds today?

. . . or starting middle or high school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could've stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school.

So she sent Barry Soetoro to the neighborhood madrassa instead. See, he's now plainly admitted what we've been trying to tell you all along, people, if you only had eyes to see and ears to hear.

So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday -- at 4:30 in the morning.

So, now I see: home schooling is okay for Barry Soetoro, but not for people of faith. Typical, isn't it?

Now I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

No picnic, perhaps, but that welfare that Stanley Ann Soetoro used to collect was definitely a free lunch, wouldn't you say? Again, deliberately trying to obscure the reality of his past.

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education and what's expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I've given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked a lot about responsibility.

I've talked about your teachers' responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

But not, dare we mention, about the influence being exerted on your school curriculum by liberal teachers' unions. And the SEIU. And the Apollo Alliance and ACORN, too. This is how it works, folks, the way they organize from the bottom up . . .

I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don't spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

There, he just admitted it, plain as day. This man wants, in no uncertain terms, to deny us our freedom as parents---the freedom to plant our kids in front of the TV every day so they can watch Beck and Hannity and Fox & Friends for as long as we parents, not the government, see fit. You see, this is how Marxism begins, people. Seems perfectly benign and innocent at the onset, but later on . . .

I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility for setting high standards . . .

See there? Government imposing its will on families: One of the key benchmarks of the totalitarian state.

. . . supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren't working where students aren't getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world -- and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

Notice the order here. Teachers' unions first, parents last. Again, one of the first steps in training the youth of America to look to the government---the government!---for leadership first, not to mom and dad, oh no no no. Wouldn't want to do that!

And that's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer -- maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor -- maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine -- but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

Now, let's take a close look at the President's selection of careers suggested here: right up front, he's planting the suggestion in students' minds that maybe they should be writing "articles in a newspaper". All that much easier, say, to ensure a steady stream of sympathetic scribes for the fawning national newsmedia of the future? Or for a future Pravda instead? And why make the suggestion to impressionable kids that they might want to be a "newspaper writer"? Why not a broadcaster? Why not a talk-show host who's more interested in exposing the lurking socialist menace to our country than a writer for the New York Times, or---or, or, the Huffington Post? Whoa no, we wouldn't want to leave that kind of impression.

Next on the list comes an "innovator". But what kind of innovator? Oh, I get it---someone who invents "vaccines." You know, like swine flu vaccine? Like, the kind of vaccine that we all may be compelled to take in only a few short weeks? I'm just sayin', people. This is what they've had planned all along.

And finally---and here's the kicker---he's openly recruiting a new generation of loyal government employees. Mayors and Senators and---no wait, say it slowly---Supreme Court Justices. As in, a certain wise Latina woman justice who's been in the news of late? I'm sure this all just a coincidence . . . but let that all sink in for a moment, folks.

And no matter what you want to do with your life -- I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

Once again, let's back up and see the order of priority the President's talking about here here: newspaper writers and Supreme Court Justices first, got that? And members of our military? They come in dead last. [Chuckling] And this---this is the person we've entrusted with our national security in the global war on terror for the next three years? I mean, you've got to be kidding me!

And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country . . .

Whoa! Stop right there. Did you hear that? He just said, "the future of this country." You got that, little Johnny and Susie, playing in the sandbox over there? Your spelling test, your times tables---these are the things that will determine whether your nation---free for over 200 years---will continue to remain free, or descends into a nightmare of totalitarian dictatorship? And who exactly will determine how little Johnny and Susie measure up, and where they fit in, in the future, anyway? Their parents? Or . . . the government? I think we've pretty much ascertained the answer to that little question, folks.

What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS . . .

Please, please, please, is no one going to put a stop to this? The President is discussing the homosexual agenda, openly and explicitly, in front of our nation's 5-year-olds? I mean, is it just me, or is anyone else out there simply outraged by this?

. . . and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment.

Brought to you by the avowedly Marxist Apollo Alliance and Van Jones. Whew, we dodged a bullet there, folks. Won't be the last time, rest assured.

You'll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free . . .

Bingo! You could not find a more textbook definition of "socialism" than that right there: "fight poverty, discrimination, make our nation more fair . . ." To each according to his needs, eh, comrade?

. . . You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems . . .

A thinly disguised call to collectivization. This is how it starts . . .

If you don't do that -- if you quit on school -- you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.

So, if you're a parent, and you choose of your own free will to home-school your children because you don't want your kids subjected to---oh, I don't know, the teaching of, say, evolution as established scientific fact, or tolerance and acceptance for the homosexual lifestyle, or because you don't think it's maybe the best influence for your kids to be surrounded by the children of, ohhhh, Islamic---say that again--Islamic households, say, you're not only hurting your kids' chances to get ahead: You're downright unpatriotic! I mean, how much more explictly can he say it? Because in the future, people, mark my words: there will only be schools run by the state, with textbooks and teachers certified by the state, to advance the agenda of the . . . what? The individual? You know the answer.

Now I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us things the other kids had.

Until . . . she married Mr. Soetoro, who did what? Legally adopted little Barry Soetoro as an Indonesian citizen.

There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn't fit in.

There it is again! Of course he had a father. Only it was Mr. Soetoro, who---let me repeat myself---legally adopted Barry Soetoro as a naturalized Indonesian citizen. I mean, how much plainer can it be than that? You know, it really makes you wonder, doesn't it? Why the President is constantly, constantly trying to obscure all these nagging little details from his past . . .

So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I'm not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

[Chuckles] "More trouble than I . . . should have"? Funny . . . I don't remember hearing anything about this during the campaign last year. I don't remember reading about any "trouble" in, oh, say, the New York Times, or, say, the Washington Post anytime recently, do you? I don't! But if you're, oh, say, an investigative journalist who's reporting that Barack Hussein Obama was---how shall we say---addicted to cocaine, well! You're some kind of "fringe nutjob," publishing "unsubstantiated rumors," now, aren't you? Have you ever asked yourself why this is, people? Why some people's facts seem to pull more weight in our vaunted mainstream media than other peoples' facts? Do you think it's really only due to pure happenstance?

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.

Like, oh, being required to study Darwin's theory of evolution in a high-school "science" class, perhaps? Or having to write a paper on Karl Marx's theory of the proletariat in a high-school "civics" class? See how it works, people? They draw this subconscious connection between evolution and "science", and Marxism and "civics". So, of course, after awhile, your typical high-schooler begins to think of a philosophy as utterly diabolical as hardcore Marxism as being a perfectly "civic" philosophy. You know, no different at all, really, from Federalism or Republicanism or Parliamentary Democracy. This is how they gain acceptance, people---have you figured it out yet?

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home -- that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher . . .

[Chuckling] So, let me get this straight: if some instructor---and let's be plain, folks, we're talking about teachers' unions here---even suggests that---oh, I don't know---homosexuality, or bestiality, or incest is just another healthy and wholesome expression of human sexuality . . . Yep. Don't talk back. Simply obey. The mind reels, people.

. . . or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school . . .

Now, please do tell, Mr. President, why was it that young Miss Perez, from Roma, Tejas, didn't speak any English when she was five or six years old? Funny how he doesn't refer to her as "native born Jazmin Perez," now, isn't it? I'm just sayin'.

. . . Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer -- hundreds of extra hours -- to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he's headed to college this fall.

[Laughing] Now, isn't that something, folks? Young mister Schultz---and God bless him, and I really mean that---has somehow managed to survive brain cancer for, what, 15 years? That's amazing! I mean, it's really a tribute to our private healthcare system---but wait wait wait a minute! I thought I'd heard the President say, not too long ago in fact, that our current private healthcare system---the greatest healthcare system in the world, the same healthcare system that saved mister Schultz's life---is utterly and completely broken. And dysfunctional. And needs to be replaced. By a "government" system. That rations care and determines who gets treatment. And which decides who lives and . . . Just let that sink in for a moment.

And then there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

There it is. The voice of The Leader: "I expect you." Not, "your parents expect you." This is how it works in indoctrination programs in socialist countries, getting kids at a very young age, mind you, to associate their aspirations with some "father figure" leader than with their very own flesh and blood. That's how the Maoists did it in China, the Cultural Revolution the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, they were able to turn the youth against their own parents and grandparents. If you've followed this show at all up to now, you surely all know the formula.

That's why today, I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education -- and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community.

Working as a "community organizer," perhaps? ACORN is going to need thousands of census workers next year, aren't they? I'm just askin'.

Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Standards of hygiene, enforced behavior: Again, benchmarks of an incipient totalitarian state.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you're not going to be any of those things.

[Chuckle] Well, I'm certainly glad I wasn't around to hear this little sermon when I decided to embark upon a career in broadcasting. I mean, I'd probably still be an alcoholic rodeo clown if I'd adopted this kind of defeatist, nihilist attitude. But then again, when the state---not you---decides what your career will be---and that's a trademark of Marxist societies, mark my words---why bother dreaming of succeeding in basketball, or music, or radio, or anything else?

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject you study. You won't click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling's first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published.

Whoa whoa whoooooa. Did I just hear the President of the United States referring to a book that uses symbols associated with witchcraft, and sorcery, and the occult? Well, [chuckling] you know, far be it from me to make any association, but if you've watched this program long enough, you've already learned that many, many prominent members of the Nazi Party in Germany were devoted followers of the occult, back in the '20s and '30s. Of course there's no connection here whatsoever, but . . . it still makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Well gee, Mister President, now I---I'm really confused. A minute ago . . . you were telling the youth of America to forever give up their hopes and dreams of succeeding in professional basketballl. But now, you're using a basketball player as some kind of model of success? Something's not adding up here, people, but I promise you we will get to the bottom of this.

These people succeeded because they understand that you can't let your failures define you -- you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

Of course a bad grade doesn't mean you're stupid! Not when you model your belief systems after the kind of "moral relativism" that are prevalent in socialist societies, that is. And besides, people, in a Marxist, communist, totalitarian state, your grades in school don't determine whether you get ahead. The government does. The leader does. Don't you feel better knowing this already?

No one's born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. It's the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength.

Of course you need to ask for help---at least, in the realm occupied by "Comrade" Obama. You see, again, one of the benchmarks of the totalitarian state on display here. Because, in a truly hardcore Marxist state, the individual isn't allowed to think for himself. Repeat that again: you cannot think for yourself, it is prohibited---it is dangerous. The model citizen has to ask the government for the answer to every single question. The government tells him how to think, how to act, how to dress, how to behave. The individual has no worth; he knows nothing; he is expendable. Which is why, among other things, we need a government-run healthcare system to go along with it. Because, see, it makes the wheels of a totalitarian government turn sooo much more efficiently when, you know, the government can ration life-saving healthcare, and with it, life itself . . . This is what we are up against. But thankfully, we surround them.

It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust -- a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor -- and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

See how he does it, people? It all sounds so innocent, so benign and paternal: ask your parents, your grandparents, for help. But then, in the very same breath, he throws in the teachers' unions, the organized labor movement and their auxiliaries in ACORN. MoveOn and the SEIU---the storm troopers of he socialist government that is being prepared for you, people---listen to me when I say this!

And even when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you -- don't ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

[Audible sigh] I don't know how much longer I can go on, people. I mean, I am feeling so drained, so mentally drained, having to point out to you the obvious conflation, the association---the individual with the state. The state, the individual. No one worth more than the other. Do you see this yet, people? The textbook definition of fascism on naked and brutal display here? Oh, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know about you, but I tremble for the future of our Republic, I really do.

The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It's the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

There it is again! "For this country." Not, "for your family", or "for your liberty", but no! "For the state", which, as it always is in totalitarian regimes, as we've talked about here before, is elevated in importance above all other things. Above the family, above the church, above your very freedom of worship, your freedom of self-defense, your right to bear arms to defend your family against the jackbooted thugs who are waiting---just waiting!---to break down your door, to vaccinate your kids, to turn them---and you---into servants of socialism and totalitarianism. And funny how he mentions "twenty years" or "fifty years" down the road, isn't it? Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say President Obama seems to know for certain already who's going to be the President of the United States in twenty or fifty years. I mean, you have to wonder how President Obama seems to be so confident in his ability to see into the future, don't you? Unless, that is---well, in fascist-Marxist societies, there are no elections, or at least that aren't rigged in favor of the leader who is The One. . .

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions.I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you've got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down -- don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Okay, enough satirizing . . . What's truly and genuinely demoralizing about Beckism is the fact that it is being allowed, to a large degree, to dictate the course of public policy in this country. How many times do we need to shout "Fairness Doctrine" before someone in Washington listens?

---Vitelius

The Most Awesome Piece of LegislationSince The Passage of The Medicare Act

I am speechless.

In a last effort to give the Senate a bipartisan health care bill, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee circulated a comprehensive proposal on Sunday to overhaul the health care system and proposed a new fee on insurance companies to help pay for coverage of the uninsured.

The proposal is the culmination of more than a year of work by the chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana. A similar fee was proposed by several liberal Democrats in July . . .

The proposal by Mr. Baucus does not include a public option, or a government-run insurance plan, to compete with private insurers, as many Democrats want.

Mr. Baucus's plan, expected to cost $850 billion to $900 billion over 10 years, would tax insurance companies on their most expensive health care policies. The hope is that employers would buy cheaper, less generous coverage for employees, thereby reducing the overuse of medical services . . .

A recent report by Oppenheimer & Company, the investment bank, said, "It will be very difficult for the Senate Finance Committee to structure the fees in a way that they won't be immediately passed on to customers in the form of higher premiums."

Another section of Mr. Baucus's proposal would help pay insurance premiums, co-payments and deductibles for people with incomes less than 300 percent of the poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four). It would also provide some protection for people with incomes from 300 percent to 400 percent of the poverty level (up to $88,200 for a family of four), so they would generally not have to pay more than 13 percent of their income in premiums.

Mr. Baucus's proposal does not include a "trigger mechanism" of the type recommended by Ms. Snowe, who would offer a public insurance plan in any state where fewer than 95 percent of the people had access to affordable coverage . . .

Coverage under Mr. Baucus's plan would, by some measures, be less extensive than the least generous of three levels envisioned in a bill approved by three House committees.

To compare health plans, experts often focus on the percentage of medical expenses paid by insurance, on average, for a given population. This figure ranges from 70 percent to 95 percent under the House bill's options, but it would be less than 70 percent under Mr. Baucus's proposal.

Mr. Baucus would impose limits on out-of-pocket medical costs --- the co-payments, deductibles and similar charges for covered items and services. The limits would be $11,900 a year for a family and $5,950 for an individual. The comparable numbers in the House bill are $10,000 and $5,000.

So, to recap . . .

No public option: Check.

No non-profit co-ops: Check.

Shittier insurance that costs more money, pays out fewer benefits to policyholders, and discourages you from seeing your doctor when you get sick: Check.

No government "trigger" in case the insurance companies don't behave themselves and decide to arbitrarily raise premiums to whatever the hell level they want: Check.

Wow. Seems to me you'd really have to try hard to write a bill that's this bad---a bill that doesn't even satisfy a moderate Republican.

Let us hope President Obama states, in no uncertain terms, that a bill that's even vaguely related to this atrocity will never pass his desk when he speaks before a joint session of Congress this week. Otherwise, I hope he enjoys his filibuster-proof majority while he has it because it all goes away on January 6, 2011.

---Vitelius

Coming Soon: Grandma Default Swaps

Speaking of death panels, this is beyond awesome:

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy "life settlements," life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash -- $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to "securitize" these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return -- though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

Either way, Wall Street would profit by pocketing sizable fees for creating the bonds, reselling them and subsequently trading them. But some who have studied life settlements warn that insurers might have to raise premiums in the short term if they end up having to pay out more death claims than they had anticipated.

The idea is still in the planning stages. But already "our phones have been ringing off the hook with inquiries," says Kathleen Tillwitz, a senior vice president at DBRS, which gives risk ratings to investments and is reviewing nine proposals for life-insurance securitizations from private investors and financial firms, including Credit Suisse.

"We're hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering," said one investment banker not authorized to speak to the news media.

Compulsive gambling is a much, much bigger problem in America than anyone chooses to acknowledge.

---Vitelius

But He Forgot to Remind ThemThat Catsup Was a Vegetable

Resolved: When addressing the nation's schoolchildren, the President of the United States is duty-bound to refrain from proselytizing or otherwise advocating on behalf of specific policy objectives; from suggesting or inferring that his or his party's political philosophy is superior or preferable to those of any other party's; and from in any other wise using techniques of rhetoric or persuasion to advance a political, social or moral agenda which could be construed as objectionable to others. Unless, of course, he's a Republican.

America's world leadership goes well beyond the tide toward democracy. We also find that more countries than ever before are following America's revolutionary economic message of free enterprise, low taxes, and open world trade. These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes and other economic reforms that they're using, copying what we have done here in our country. I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom -- the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state -- was central to the American Revolution when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes, and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party -- have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where,because of a tax, they went down and dumped the tea in the harbor? Well, that was America's original tax revolt.

• • •

I would say that the most important thing you can do is to ground yourself in the ideas and values of the American Revolution. And that is a vision that goes beyond economics and politics. It's also a moral vision, grounded in the reverence and faith of those who believed that with God's help they could create a free and democratic nation. They designed a system of limited government that, in John Adams' words, was suited only to a religious people such as ours. Our Founding Fathers were the descendents of the Pilgrims -- men and women who came to America seeking freedom of worship -- who prospered here and offered a prayer of thanksgiving, something we've continued to do each year, and so that we'll do it again on Thursday of next week.

• • •

I definitely believe it is because one of the principal reasons that we were able to get the economy back on track and create those new jobs and all was we cut the taxes. We reduced them because, you see, the taxes can be such a penalty on people that there's no incentive for them to prosper and earn more and so forth because they have to give so much to the Government. And what we have found is that at the lower rates the Government gets more revenue. There are more people paying taxes because there are more people with jobs. And there are more people willing to earn more money because they get to keep a bigger share of it.

• • •

I got the strangest letter when I was Governor. There was talk about having a gun ban in California. It didn't go through. But I got a letter from a man in San Quentin prison, and from the prison he wrote me the letter to tell me he was in there for burglary. He was a burglar. And he said, ``I just want you to know that if that law goes through, here in San Quentin there will be celebrating throughout the day and night by all the burglars who are in prison because'' he said, ``we can watch a house we plan to rob for days. We can learn the habits of the people living in that house, to know when is the best time to go in and be a burglar -- rob it.'' He said, ``The only question we can never answer is: Does the man in that house have a gun in the drawer by his bed?'' He said, ``That's a risk we have to run.'' He said, ``If you tell us in advance they won't have a gun in that drawer by their bed,'' he said, ``the burglars in here will be celebrating forevermore.''

---Vitelius

Lest We Forget What the Weekend's About

While we fire up the barbecue, slap some steaks and spuds on the grill, and watch football and get hammered on cheap beer enjoy quiet, reflective moments of Christian fellowship with friends and family, let's not forget this Labor Day weekend to spend a few moments to meditate on the sheer and utter awesomeness of America's free enterprise system, and the myriad blessings it bestows upon its workers:

In February 2009, a leading chain of gourmet grocery stores in New York City agreed to pay nearly $1.5 million in unpaid wages to 550 workers. Behind those numbers lie a grim set of business practices. Amish Markets denied its employees overtime pay, despite requiring many to work more than 40 hours a week. Some employees were paid only $300 a week for 60 to 70 hours of work, which translates into four to five dollars an hour, well below the state’s minimum wage. Individual workers reported additional abuses: being fired after injuring a leg on the job, having delivery tips stolen by management, and being fired for talking to the state Department of Labor.

In the same month on the other side of the country, the L.A. city attorney filed criminal charges against owners of four car washes, charging them with failure to pay the minimum wage and provide employees with breaks. Dozens of workers said they were paid a flat rate of $35 to $40 a day for shifts that usually lasted more than eight hours, with as little as 15 minutes a day for lunch; some worked for customer tips alone. The workers did not receive medical care for lacerations and acid burns caused by the machinery and chemicals they used. All told, these car wash workers could be owed close to half a million dollars in wages.

And last year in Illinois, a large temporary staffing agency settled a class action suit with over 3,300 workers, totaling close to half a million dollars. Usually hired by the day, workers were placed in minimum wage jobs doing assembly, packaging and janitorial work. But when they accumulated more than 40 hours in a week working for different client companies, they didn’t receive overtime—instead, the temp agency “split” their checks to avoid triggering mandatory overtime pay. Workers also reported that regardless of the actual amount of hours they worked in a given day, their time was rounded down to eight hours by the agency.

Unfortunately, these cases are not unusual, nor are they limited to small businesses like gourmet groceries or car washes. In 2008, for example, Wal-Mart announced it would settle 63 cases in 42 states charging that the company forced its employees to work “off the clock”—that is, requiring unpaid work after employees had clocked out at the end of their official shifts. The settlement totaled $352 million in unpaid wages and involved hundreds of thousands of current and former employees.

Earlier the same year, a federal judge ordered the Saigon Grill restaurant in New York City to pay 36 of its delivery workers $4.6 million in owed wages; they had routinely worked 13-hour shifts for as little as $1.60 an hour.

Also last year, a harrowing investigation by the Charlotte Observer documented systemic violations of health and safety laws by one of the largest poultry processing companies in North Carolina, House of Raeford. Faced with worker injuries such as chronic musculoskeletal disorders, broken bones and chemical burns, the company responded by hiding injury rates from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, ignoring requests for medical help, and threatening to fire injured workers.

Read that last paragraph again and let it sink in, for here is where we find a crucial but missing component in the current healthcare-reform debate. One of the reasons why so many Americans have such shitty medical coverage is because they work in shitty jobs for shitty employers who (1) intentionally underpay their workers, (2) refuse to offer employee healthcare of any kind, and (3) threaten retaliation against workers who dare to file workers' compensation claims for work-related injuries. Need proof?

ƒOf the workers in our sample who experienced a serious injury on the job, only 8 percent filed a workers’ compensation claim.

When workers told their employer about the injury, 50 percent experienced an illegal employer reaction—including firing the worker, calling immigration authorities, or instructing the worker not to file for workers’ compensation.

About half of workers injured on the job had to pay their bills out-of-pocket (33 percent) or use their health insurance to cover the expenses (22 percent). Workers’ compensation insurance paid medical expenses for only 6 percent of the injured workers in our sample.

And it is not a matter of a "few bad apples" wrecking the mighty ship of commerce here. This abusive crap is widespread across a range of industries:

• Fully 26 percent of workers in our sample were paid less than the legally required minimum wage in the previous work week.

• These minimum wage violations were not trivial in magnitude: 60 percent of workers were underpaid by more than $1 per hour.

• Over a quarter of our respondents worked more than 40 hours during the previous week. Of those, 76 percent were not paid the legally required overtime rate by their employers.

• Like minimum wage violations, overtime violations were of substantial magnitude. The average worker with a violation had put in 11 hours of overtime—hours that were either underpaid or not paid at all.

• ƒNearly a quarter of the workers in our sample came in early and/or stayed late after their shift during the previous work week. Of these workers, 70 percent did not receive any pay at all for the work they performed outside of their regular shift.

• The large majority of our respondents (86 percent) worked enough consecutive hours to be legally entitled to at least one meal break during the previous week. Of these workers, more than two-thirds (69 percent) received no break at all, had their break shortened, were interrupted by their employer, or worked during the break—all of which constitute a violation of meal break law.

• ƒIn California, Illinois and New York, workers are required to receive documentation of their earnings and deductions, regardless of whether they are paid in cash or by check. However, 57 percent of workers in our sample did not receive this mandatory documentation in the previous work week.

• Employers are generally not permitted to take deductions from a worker’s pay for damage or loss, work-related tools or materials or transportation. But 41 percent of respondents who reported deductions from their pay in the previous work week were subjected to these types of illegal deductions.

• We found that when workers complained about their working conditions or tried to organize a union, employers often responded by retaliating against them. Just as important, many workers never made complaints in the first place, often because they feared retaliation by their employer.

• One in five workers in our sample reported that they had made a complaint to their employer or ƒattempted to form a union in the last year. Of those, 43 percent experienced one or more forms of illegal retaliation from their employer or supervisor. For example,employers fired or suspended workers, threatened to call immigration authorities, or threatened to cut workers’ hours or pay.

• Another 20 percent of workers reported that they did not make a complaint to their employer during the past 12 months, even though they had experienced a serious problem such as dangerous working conditions or not being paid the minimum wage. Half were afraid of losing their job, 10 percent were afraid they would have their hours or wages cut, and 36 percent thought it would not make a difference.

Had enough free-market awesomeness for one blog post yet?

Read the whole report, for it confirms what a lot of us have been saying all along---namely, that huge numbers of American workers are treated scarcely better than poorly-paid chattel. And while the report does conclude with some worthwhile policy prescriptions aimed at ameliorating many of these injustices---increased government oversight, stiffer penalties for violations, and stronger health and safety standards---it also serves to remind us, more than ever, why we need the Employee Free Choice Act enacted into law now. It provides workers with greater measures of legal protection against union-busting employers, and gives workers a greater and more powerful role in putting an end to the kind of wholesale violations of employee-protection law that happen routinely in America now. Now, I know that increased unionization, in and of itself, isn't the end-all and cure-all for every issue attendant to workplace discrimination, income inequality and the like, but it's a big, big step in the right direction. (H/t James Parks.)

Go here and sign the online petition, then drop a note to our Unitary Waffler and let him know that we expect him to lead the fight for EFCA when the Congress reconvenes later this month. And this time, we must demand no needless concessions or half-measures---no more deal-cutting with the likes of Chuck Grassley and Mike Enzi, no more watered-down "trigger" mechanisms that only take effect if employers don't behave themselves five years from now, none of the pointlessly "bipartisan" shit that has already hopelessly compromised any potential healthcare reform legislation we may see enacted this year. Channeling my inner Cheney, we won the election, and EFCA is our due. If Obama caves on this bill, I'm finished with him. (H/t James Parks.)

---Vitelius

It's Only Called Indoctrination if You'rea Scary Socialist Muslim Negro Dude

Obama pep talk to schoolkids = socialist indoctrination.

Republican attempts to rewrite history = promotion of Fairness & Balance.

The [Texas] State Board of Education has appointed "review committees" made up largely of active and retired school teachers to draft new social studies curriculum standards as well as six "expert reviewers" to help shape the final document.

The standards, which the board will decide next spring, will influence new history, civics and geography textbooks.

The first draft for proposed standards in United States History Studies Since Reconstruction says students should be expected "to identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority."

Gingrich helped lead House Republicans to their 1994 takeover of Congress and became House speaker. Schlafly founded the conservative Eagle Forum and became a leading opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment aimed at formalizing women's equality with men. The Moral Majority formed in the late 1970s as an evangelical Christian organization that influenced politics and public policy for decades . . .

Another board conservative, Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, thinks students should study both sides to "see what the differences are and be able to define those differences."

He would add James Dobson's Focus on the Family, conservative talk show host Sean Hannity and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to the list of conservatives. Others have proposed adding talk show host Rush Limbaugh and the National Rifle Association.

Texas really is our most totally awesome state. It gets better:

Civil rights leaders Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall -- whose names appear on schools, libraries, streets and parks across the U.S. -- are given too much attention in Texas social studies classes, conservatives advising the state on curriculum standards say.

"To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin" -- as in the current standards -- "is ludicrous," wrote evangelical minister Peter Marshall, one of six experts advising the state as it develops new curriculum standards for social studies classes and textbooks. David Barton, president of Aledo-based WallBuilders, said in his review that Chavez, a Hispanic labor leader, "lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others."

Marshall also questioned whether Thurgood Marshall, who argued the landmark case that resulted in school desegregation and was the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, should be presented to Texas students as an important historical figure. He wrote that the late justice is "not a strong enough example" of such a figure.

So the guy who successfully argued Brown v Topeka and who became the first African-American justice on the Supreme Court doesn't measure up historically to a serial philanderer whose signature accomplishment in American history was an act of sabotage against the federal government.

I'll tell you what: if the Texas School Board approves the teaching of an elective high-school social studies class titled The Paranoid Movement in American Politics, 1950-present, using volumes by Hofstadter and Perlstein as texts, hey, this all makes perfect sense to me. Otherwise, if these asshats ever decide they want to actually secede from the rest of us, don't let the door hit their asses on the way out.

---Vitelius

Epiphany of The Day

It has taken me awhile to figure out why conservatives have come so unglued over the prospect of Obama's scheduled speech to our nation's schoolkids next week. But now, I think I get it. And frankly, now that I've given it some serious thought, I'm outraged over it, too.

Look at it this way: Assume the president delivers up a hearty dose of uplifting boilerplate next week, encouraging kids to study hard, do their homework, strive for excellence in and out of the classroom, and dedicate themselves to a lifetime of learning. Well, if every schoolchild in America actually took Obama's advice to heart, where would the next generation of Republican leaders come from? Or the next generation of Republicans in general? No wonder they're so pissed off.

Just a thought.

---Vitelius

Great Moments in Art History

I had no idea that the history of American architecture started with Rockefeller Center, did you? I guess that old Frank Lloyd Whatshisname was just some furniture designer, and Louis Sullivan was, what, a prizefighter?

I guess this doesn't qualify as "American architecture" in Glenn Beck's world, either.

Lord knows what this crackpot would find at the Sistine Chapel.

In case you missed Olbermann's takedown from last night, you can see it here. It is arguably funnier than the original.

---Vitelius