How Republicans Win? Democrats are in control at the White House and Congress, have a higher approval rating than Republicans, and have policies that most Americans favor. Yet, Republicans are winning?

Republicans are great at winning the day-to-day message battles (battles folks, not war), but in the end they have lost and will continue to lose the war. They continue to go down in the polls and they continue to lose voters. If that's winning, they can keep it.

I really didn't and don't under Saracuda's Death Panel deal. My primary care doctor gave me a living will form to complete and I have complied.

Perhaps after the Schavio case, the smarter doctors in the country figured that this was the best way to go. They--my doctor at least-- wants to stay out of the weeds on this issue; and I am glad my doctor did so.

Well highlighted.

I would like to say that everybody knew that Palin was misappropriating an actual statement and was just jumping over the explanatory step, but then I would be fibbing.

Somehow, the difference between being completely delusional and being delusional with a source strikes me as a distinction without a difference. As I pointed out back during the campaign, Republicans always have a source for all their lies.

You got me thinking, it just struck me, that a lot of people on this site are probably in reality on Palin's side on this, just have cognitive dissonance of some kind and don't know it yet, don't realize it yet. You know, those that constantly complain that the Democrats in Congress and the current adminstration are a bunch of yellow-bellied useless blue dog DINO's and don't represent them? I wonder why they would they want so very badly that those very same people to be making decisions about what gets covered by health insurance or a government health plan, and/or deciding who decides what gets covered? Isn't there some kind of disconnect there? Who exactly is supposed to be running the single payer health plan or whatever of their dreams? Is Paul Wellstone going to rise from the grave to do it or what? The Congress we have now, does everyone realize that that's the Congress that is going to be running whatever show we get (or worse, if the trends continue as have for decades.)

Don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself one of the described, just wondering what the deal in complaining about the same Congress which you want to give a lot of power, i.e., if you think they are so incompetent, why aren't you with Palin?

The health care rationing argument is just stupid. What world are these folks living in that this isn't happening already? My mom has Medicare and excellent private coverage (as a retied federal employee) and STILL faces deails of benefits. I've spent the better part of this year in administrative hell with both providers. My mom came down with a vicious case of torticolis/dystonia (on top of her other health concerns) in early February. She was in severe constant pain, could not sleep, could not dress, could not feed herself and needed round the clock care. Her neurologist recommended botox injections to the neck and physical therapy 3 times a week. Medicare would not cover the botox for torticolis. After 2 months of appeals, we finally got her secondary insurance to pick it up. I can't imagine the challenges someone without insurance coverage (or inadequate coverage) faces or someone who doesn't have advocates (family, friends, doctors) fighting on their behalf.

If we want to talk about cost impact, how much more costly would it have been to have her go into a nursing home because they are unable to get the medical treatment necessary to live independently? As part of health care reform we should be having this discussion.

My bigger problem is with those who are screaming about government-forced euthanasia/death panels. Seriously? Their concern is how the government will treat people at end of life, but they arguing against providing adequate medical coverage and preventative care to people who are currently uninsured? That hardly seems very right-to-life-ish to me.

Sorry to read of the troubles with your Mom, and I realize how tediously awful it can be to deal with the insurance deny-ers. They want it that way, of course, so we'll get discouraged and let them deny us care.

The real world you accurately describe can indeed be very difficult. Easier, of course, to fantasize and inveigh.

As to your last point, I think the healthcare thing is really another proxy for their generalized hostility, like the birth certificate sedition.

The idea of the government getting involved in life-and-death decisions as to individual medical patients is so horrible, as is the idea of the government making other kinds of decisions when all you have to do is take one look at the government ... and what you see right away is that its leader is a black man with an Arab name.

MHO.

The fact is that health insurance companies have these same kind of decision makers, but they're not elected or public officials, they might be simply bean counters looking to guarantee stockholder value, there is no transparency for the public, but someone denied say breast cancer treatment (I believe one of the bloggers over at Firedog had this issue) has no recourse."

There are panels who decide everyday who gets a lung, or a kidney or a heart. Every day.

Remember poor Mickey Mantle, one of the greatest Yanks of all time. I was sooooooooooo pissed with the MSM 'public outcry'...how long did he last anyway? a couple years with a new liver.

Had no idea Rahm was tied to this.

Great Post Desi.

Thanks for the shout-out, Des. Wish I had something intelligent to add to your thread on a philosophical level. Yesterday was one of those down-and-dirty, brutally hot August days in New York, the kind of day when they open the fire hydrants in neighborhoods like mine (Bed-Stuy, Bklyn) because there are no parks, no cooling centers (at least as far as I could tell), and so many businesses are no longer in business (I'm guessing by the gates down in the middle of the day) and quite a few of the ones that are still open don't have air conditioning.

On Saturday, a cop in my precinct was shot. He had just stepped into the parking lot on his break, and pop! He was wearing a bullet-proof vest, so he was not seriously injured. Walked back into the precinct and said, "I think I've been shot." Was he targeted? Who knows.

I was running errands yesterday, sweating like a banshee and looking for a couple of small items, which I didn't want to spend a lot of money on. I stopped into one hardware store, several 99-cent stores, and two drug stores. Everything I touched was made in China, Turkey, India, or Israel. (Full disclosure: I completely avoided stuff made in Mexico.) I thought about lead, BPA, VOCs (well, not really, but I should have), asbestos, and mold (I walked into a radically hip bar on the edge of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy that reeked of mildew—what a concept—so it was impossible not to think about mold). It's not really such a mystery why the rates of adult asthma are increasing every year. Yesterday was an air-quality alert day in parts of neighboring New Jersey because of ozone levels. Today isn't one.

I saw several people on my journey who were either drunk or mentally unstable or possibly both, bloated and puffy from ill health, wandering under the elevated train on Broadway. Many people looked dazed, miserable, slow-witted, and downright defeated in their sweat-drenched T-shirts. Overhead, the air-conditioned trains thundered by and dripped condensation on those of us below. The only people who looked unfazed were the overdressed Guatemalan ladies pushing carts of Italian ices. No one was buying, however.

I'm describing what I saw because I think I witnessed (or read about) every single problem—other than war and torture—that the Democrats aren't fixing and have no intention of fixing: poverty, availability of handguns, loss of American manufacturing, foreclosures, the environment, lack of adequate health care, lack of basic social services. It was simply a day in the life of many Americans: The Way We Live Now.