Regarding the story about Missouri state Senate candidate Brian Nieves, who allegedly pulled a gun on Shawn Bell, a staffer from the opposing primary candidate:

To me, it sounds like there are buffoons on both sides of this one.  But I don't quite buy Shawn Bell's version of events.  The bit about how he curled up in a ball raised my suspicions, but then when he said he went back to retrieve his sunglasses.  What?

Remember the story from the 2008 campaign where a Republican staffer or volunteer, a young woman, claimed that she'd been mugged by Obama supporters?  They carved a word (or a letter?) on her cheek.  But the word was a mirror image and it turned out she had done it to herself.

That's what Bell's story reminds me of.

I read Josh's bit about how Breitbart and the other right-wing nutjobs are to blame for what happened to Sherrod.  Yeah, of course, they are.

But Obama and Vilsack (even though I loved him as my governor) get most of the blame from me.  Always, anytime you hear a bad report about anything or anybody, CONSIDER THE SOURCE! 

The results of this debacle:  For the first time ever, if polled I would say I disapprove of Obama's job performance.  It's going to take a lot of work for him to get my support back. And I think Vilsack should be fired.

Obama's on TV right now giving a speech explaining health care reform in a sensible, concise way.  Why hasn't he been doing this all along?

Scott Brown's election might be the best thing that's happened to Dems all year if it gives the people in Washington a wake up call.

Unfortunately, right now, a lot of them keep pushing the snooze alarm and going back to sleep.

Earlier this week we were treated to Rush Limbaugh's racist rantings about how Obama will help Haiti because he wants to cater to blacks and light-skinned blacks in this country.  Tonight, right now as I type, we've got Chris Matthews going on and on about how our black president is helping a black country and that's going to improve our standing in the world.

Chuck Todd is trying to steer Matthews back toward sanity but you all know how well that goes.  Todd's trying to point out that any president (okay maybe not GWB) but any other American president of the 20th or 21st century would be doing everythng they could to help our neighbors.  It has nothing to do with Obama's skin color or the skin color of the earthquake victims.  It's HUMAN BEINGS helping HUMAN BEINGS.

WTF is so hard to understand about that?

Defenders of health insurance mandates keep comparing it to car insurance because most states require drivers to have car insurance.

There's a big difference.  If you don't want to buy car insurance - or you can't afford it - you don't have to drive.  You can walk, you can take a cab, use public transit, bum a ride, or just stay home.

Another big difference:  When you buy car insurance, you don't have to disclose your entire medical history to the insurance company.  You don't have to give them access to all your medical records.  You don't have to call them up and get their approval before you go to see a doctor or have surgery or get a mammogram.  Health insurance is a lot more personal than car insurance.

I'm not opposed to mandates.  What I am opposed to is requiring people to buy health insurance from private companies without a public option. 

I'm not sure if Josh lumped me in with the others who've emailed in recent days, but I think he probably did. Maybe I should have just stuck to my question and left out the commentary.  But here's what I really want to know:

If HCR passes without a public option or Medicare buy-in, is there any chance we'll get a second crack at passing those things?  When Obama's faced with his own re-election campaign in 2011-2012, will he be more inclined to listen to voters who want a public option?  Will he make new promises to improve on the HCR that's already passed by adding a public option or buy-in? 

Tom Harkin was on Rachel Maddow last night and he said the bill in its current form is just a starter home.  We need to get that passed, then later we can come back and add more things on to it.  That makes sense to me.

And that is exactly what I was asking when I emailed TPM yesterday.  If we accept what we're getting now, will there be any chance we can get more later?  Or will this be a done deal, now and forever? 

The mocking attitude I'm picking up from posts like this only makes me feel angrier and more hysterical.  I need more Harkin - I need to hear from progressives who want more reform than we're getting now and are promising to keep fighting for it in the future. 

That's something I can sell to people if I'm canvassing for Dems.  It's the kind of thing that will keep me motivated to vote Dem and get others to vote.

It seems like most of what I'm hearing - from Obama and others - is "this is the only chance we're ever going to get to do HCR so we have to do it right."  In other words, if we don't dump this bill and start over (like Dean recommended), we'll never ever get real reform.

That's what leaves me feeling hopeless.

When Sarah visited the Barnes and Noble in Sioux City, Iowa, this weekend, one pair of ditzes started the line at 4 p.m. on Saturday and camped outside overnight.  In December.  In Iowa.

According to the Sioux City Journal,  the last person joined the line around the same time Palin arrived at the store the next day.  Everyone who wanted an autograph got one.  This is from the Sioux City Journal:

Palin didn't grant media interviews and her signing placement in the store was blocked off by black curtains. People in line were told to have cell phones turned off and not to take a picture of Palin. However, a camera flash from Palin's personal photographer went off frequently and those who got an autograph also received a card saying they could order pictures for a fee.

She must think she's a rock star.  Sadly, there are enough fools out there who'll treat her like one.

(cross-posted on Blogger)

Anger and frustration are always at the core of my (all too frequent) bouts with depression.  Nothing gets to me more than knowing in my head and in my heart that the public option is the only viable way to reform health care in this country and that we have the votes to win if Obama would just bully up and push for it.

Medicare for All would turn around my life and my family's.  We are cursed with bad genes that have led to health problems for all of us - high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, bipolar disorder and more. 

Lack of health insurance was the only reason I was forced to go on disability more than 20 years ago and fear of losing Medicare and Medicaid is what keeps me on disability now.  Pre-existing conditions keep my brothers in dead end jobs they hate - they can't look for something better because they can't risk losing their insurance.  Inability to keep up with insurance premiums and co-pays has made these last few years of my mother's life miserable and destroyed her once-perfect credit rating, and the financial stress has worsened her heart condition. 

Even my rich uncle (in my family "rich" means solidly middle class) is suffering.  He has a heart condition; his wife has asthma. Thanks to advances in medicine, their health conditions are easily manageable.  What causes their grief is struggling to pay more than $1200 a month in health insurance premiums and watching their life savings fly out the window with co-pays.

Knowing there is an answer out there and that it's within our reach and knowing that the president we supported and the Democrats elected to work with him don't have the guts to go after it ... all I can do is pound my fists and scream.

And every day when I come to TPM, there it is staring me in the face.  Right on the front page - where it should be - and there are my fellow TPMers who know the truth but none of us seem to be able to do anything that will change the outcome.

It's frustrating.  It pisses me off. Depression is setting in.

But keep up the good work, TPM.  Where there's light, there's a tiny sliver of hope.

Josh is such a tease:

"I have little doubt and some direct knowledge that we'll be hearing new shocking details of who [Sarah Palin] is for months, perhaps years, to come."

That's a quote from Josh Marshall.

Direct knowledge?  Spill!

If he isn't willing to share, we can only guess what Sarah's deepest, darkest secrets are.  I have my own theory.

  

I haven't been around much lately but I'm delighted to see the new look on the front page of TPM.  Very classy, easy to navigate, great content.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Picking up on Josh's post about the problems with Kindle and other electronic books.  He expressed his concern that Amazon could develop a stranglehold on books, or that many works that might have been preserved in book forms will fall by the wayside as technology changes if they're only published electronically.

My concern is more democratic.  If Amazon/Kindle has the corner on the technology, they also have the corner on what gets published.

But more than that, I know a lot of people who don't have computers and/or don't have internet access, either because they can't afford it or they live in areas where internet access is difficult to get or only dial up is available.

Right now, those people can walk into a public library and check out all the books they want for free.  Most libraries can even use interlibrary loan to get books they don't have in their collection.

If some or most books are only published in electronic form, economically disadvantaged people will no longer have access to them.  Even if libraries are able to provide some electronic devices for public use, the technology is too expensive to make it as widely available as books are now.

These same people already have limited access to a lot of information.  I can't tell you how many times my mother has called me all pissed off because of something she saw on TV that said, "For more info, go to www dot ..."  At least she knows me and I can look things up for her, but it's not the same as being able to see the info herself, and not everyone has a friend or family member who can help out.

And what do we do when the power goes out, the internet goes down, the batteries die?  Wouldn't it be nice to have a good book to curl up with?

Not to mention all the scholarship based on marginalia - biographers often go through a subject's personal library to read what the subject wrote in the margins of their books and which passages they highlighted. I've enjoyed looking through books that belonged to family members and others to see what they wrote.  There's the very human sentiment of knowing Grandma held this book in her hand, turned these pages, wrapped this daisy in waxed paper and tucked it in the middle of Chapter 9.

Remember the Star Trek movie where it was Captain Kirk's birthday and one of his friends (was it Bones?) gave him a copy of A Tale of Two Cities?  The only books available in the future were antiques. 
  

I don't get here every day - and the recommended posts seem to cycle out about every 24 hours so I know I miss a lot of good ones. I know someone tried to start a daily thread where everyone could list their favorite posts but I didn't have time to keep up with all of those, and I guess not enough people participated to keep it going. 

I wonder if it would be possible for TPM to add a sidebar that would list the most highly recommended posts of the week. Or maybe have a TPM editor's post every Saturday where they give links to the readers' posts with the most Rec's for the week. 

Or is there a tool already available that would help me find older posts with lots of Rec's? 

I believe the most important news story now and for the foreseeable future is the economy.  And I believe it's TPM's responsibility to report on that story.

But I can't bring myself to read about it anymore.  The ins and outs of financial dealings have always confused me and they're even more confusing now.  No matter how much I try to wrap my head around it, I can't.  I used to read everything I could find about the crisis but it didn't help me understand.  I have no idea what should be done to deal with the problem so there's nothing I can contribute to the conversation here and nothing I can say to my senators or congressman (Steve King, as if he'd listen to sense if I had any to offer).

I feel like the situation is hopeless - no amount of money they throw at the banking system is going to solve anything and no one in Washington has the will to do anything else. 

So I just don't read the articles anymore.  If I see a headline about an economic story, I skip the article.  Sometimes sticking your head in the sand is the only way to save your sanity.  My sanity is fragile enough already.

From AP:

Publicly funded family planning prevents nearly 2 million unintended pregnancies and more than 800,000 abortions in the United States each year, saving billions of dollars, according to new research intended to counter conservative objections to expanding the program.


Take that, you freaking fundies! I've always believed that Planned Parenthood prevents more abortions than any other organization. Now can we put the family planning funding in the Health and Human Services budget?

Xe?  Give me a break!