Mike Ross and his fellow Blue Dogs have been beating the rest of the House and Senate Dems about the head and shoulders everytime any sensible health care reform promises negatively to impact the near term deficit numbers. In particular, they declare the “public option” DOA, even threatening to bolt party discipline if forced to vote in its favor.

Frequently, their aversion to spending public funds is couched in flowery and ideologically ornate protestations about self reliance and liberty and such shit.

It turns out that Ross is ok with the public option closest to single provider, Medicare for everybody , just as long as we spend .more public money.:

“Medicare could be offered as a choice to compete alongside private insurers for those Americans eligible to enter the national health insurance exchange, but at a reimbursement rate much greater than current Medicare rates,”

Medicare is already 75% funded from the general fisc; Blue Dog Ross wants to add a generous surcharge, which will all fall to the puclicly financed portion, meaning higher taxes/deficits, all so that health care costs can be protected from reduction.

It’s nice when the running dogs of the rich and rapacious are stupid enough to show their true colors.

We are not alone who watch in horror as Prez morphs into Lyndon Johnson.

Somewhere, Colin Powell weeps.

Quiet as it is kept, if Alma had the stones of Michelle, the first black president would have been a Republican. The world might have been spared the nightmare that was George W. Bush.

Now it is time for Powell to redeem his enablement of “he by whom he was betrayed”. Only one man has the chops to corral the generals, the (bitter) experience of struggling thanklessly in quicksand, the stated doctrine which manifestly rules out the Clinton/Gates/McChrystal strategy, the gravitas to cow the crazies, and the martial prestige, frankly, to give Prez the cover he needs.

Meet (Five Star) General Colin Powell, Secretary of State & Defense, and theatre commander in Af/Pak.

As Lenny Bruce used to say of the trinity, “it’s like three in one oil.”

There’s something else, that I guess I should leave up to Bill Cosby to teach, but he won’t take my calls. That father Prez mentioned in the book title…the older black man who can advise him from inside his head…That guy is Powell, since pops is (and was from jump) gone,.

None of the Cheney Stormtroopers will look Powell in the eye and talk their shit., Alas, per contra to Prez they will. Thus he will give Prez something else that he needs.:

: An encouragement to limit his propensity for ingratiation via the promotion in his nterlocutor of stark amazement at the amount bullshit he will tolerate for the sake of politeness.

The parties with the most profound interest in continuing the socially destructive, financially ruinous, politically corrupting and constitutionally unjustifiable prohibition on the use by otherwise autonomous individuals of exogenous neurotransmission modifiers are the franchisors and franchisees of the current distribution system;….

I’m allowed to get high off running, yoga, fasting, falling in love, obliged whether I want to or not to have my brain suffused with DMT at birth and death, encouraged to get so fuckin’ high in church that I can handle a snake, but I’m a felon if I want to nudge the identical dopamine pathways with an exogenous agent..

So it’s not really that I’m not allowed to get high—I’m just not allowed to use a shortcut!

UPDATE (DEVELOPING)NORTHAMPTON MASSACHUSETTS. POLICE ARREST 49 OVER WEEKEND AT THE CALVIN THEATRE PERFORMANCES OF THE DISCO BISCUITS 600 HITS OF LSD CONFISCATED. POLICE ACTION DESCRIBED AS “UNDERCOVER SWEEPS OPERATIONS”

Well, here were some *dangerous college kids trying to take that bad ol’ shortcut to heaven via an unsanctioned exogenous neurtransmitter modifier. Here we see the police doing their best to make drugs expensive, to the ultimate benefit, of course of exactly who again?.

More details on this profoundly disturbing misdirection of the power of the state blatently to define and punish pure “Thought Crime”. UPDATE2 That was sure some deep police work, to figure out that you might find kids selling ecstasy and acid around a Disco Biscuits Concert….I guess this was the old Grateful Dead strike force, that has been biding it’s time ever since Jerry died..

“.Police Chief Russell P. Sienkiewicz said 24 people were arrested Friday and another 25 on Saturday. Officers, including police in plain clothes, swept through public areas downtown including parking lots, the parking garage, streets, alleys and along the railroad tracks. The arrests were made each night between 7 p.m. and 4 a.m.

“They partied early and they partied late,” he said.

Police confiscated more than 600 “hits” of LSD, 45 grams of cocaine, two nitrous oxide tanks and more than $2,000 in cash.”

More details, including a prelude in January at Northampton, when 5 tanks of Nitrous Oxide and many baloons were seized.

UPDATE2Upon closer reading of the linked article, it would appear that some of the resources wasted on this display of police *petulance was extorted from the venue owner: “…police worked with the owner of the Calvin, Eric Suher, to coordinate coverage, and Suher agreed to pay the cost of some additional officers. ” Note that Suher “agreed” as opposed to “volunteered” to pay for what I presume was overtime.

UPDATE3 An inventory of the charges listed gives rise to the astonishing inference that all the arrests were for possession, and NO ONE was chared either with sale or possession for sale.

So how were these dangerous criminals not on their “best behavior”? The cops had to go out looking for them—they were not standing on the corner whispering “Shrooms, dust, I got dank…”

I will grant that the girls from *Smith are dangerous, at least to me, who has had his heart broke more than once by a beautiful dyke.

**I have to confess that at the moment I am taking journalistic liberties by venturing to say (with I should think 70-90% certainty) in the absence of hard data, that if there were multiple acid busts in Northampton, someone from Smith and for sure, UMass, is involved…

*“Sienkiewicz said he hopes the action by police will send a strong message to any future concert patrons.

‘If they are coming to a concert, they should be on their best behavior, or they are going to be arrested,’ he said.” *

The unfortunate return to prime ministerial power of Benjamin Netanyahu renders freshly disturbing his 2004 remarks anticipating eventual copulatory defeat for his co-religionists.

Evidently unconsoled by a five to one head start, Bibi seems convinced that in the long run, the Arabs will outfuck the Jews.

While I bristle at this slur upon my cousins (be they ashkenazim or sephardim), I am nonetheless moved by their plight, *as so poignantly put by Bibi.

It is not enough to say: “Fuck Faster!” We must mount an immediate airlift of testosterone patches and phosphodiesterase inhibitors lest our brave 82nd Bedborne Through-The-Sheet-Schtuppers find themselves, disarmed and unmanned, as it were…

*”The growing demographic weight (emphasis added) of Israeli Arabs, who constitute up to 20% of Israel’s overall population, was more serious and more dangerous for Israel than threats posed by the Palestinians, he said.”

Update: “Hey, Hot girls!” Not content with out-fucking their Israeli occupiers amongst themselves, the wily ‘rabs are seducing the very flower of Israeli womanhood, nipping it in the bud as it were..

It’s too late for the patches and pills—direct action to forestall mixing is needed. Jews on Patrol..

“Throughout Israel, young Jewish men are forming vigilante groups to end interracial relationships between Arab men and Jewish women, which are occurring with increased frequency as Jewish settlements dig deeper into Arab territory. The vigilantes say Arabs lure Jewish women with money and “bad boy” personalities”

These subtle seducers know how to smooth talk a chick:: “…a group of Arab boys drove by and were yelling at us, hey hot girls,… Arab boys are wild. They’re bad boys. Some girls like that. I think they like us because Arab girls are all conservative and wear the covering on their hair and we dress normally.” ‘

“a stunning surprise” hardly begins to encompass the enormity!… But the back and forth over endeavor vs. success has blinded us to the brilliance of the prize committee’s work…..

Update:(h/t Garrett Utley);

That seismic rumble, barely audible beneath the hubub always provoked when a 25-1 shot comes in, was the shifting of the geopolitical fabric under the forces of reaction.

This is like a game of Go, and the committee has just dropped a stone out there in the ozone that is going to pay dividends for Prez’s true objectives—to finesse the Generals back into their constitutionally mandated subordination, so that the law enfocement prolems of the Pashtuns can be turned over to *law enforcement, and taken out of the free-fire zone.

Prez, and the forces of peace, have five strategically adept allies, as we battle with the war machine.

If nothing else, the McChrystal gambit, as played, will encounter an impediment; just as he packs for Stockholm, (Ed.note: It’s OSLO, you idiot!) Prez will be considering how to respond to that scurvy, mutinous, insubordinate leaker’s request for more cannon fodder.

Next step—the logical imperative for a vigorous world government, and the migration upward of (quaint concept) national sovereignty.

*There are bad people, doing bad things. Someone has to stop them. Just not us vigilante/gangbangers.

From the University of New Hampshire, a profound study. Corporal punishment is an appropriate form of discipline only if one intends to diminish the child’s intellect.and as much a double the chance of diagnosing PTSD in adulthood.

Prof. Murray Straus shows a linear, “dose-related” response in lowered National IQ correlating to the frequency with which that nation’s parents spanked. their children.

Provocative though these findings are, they are certainly not unpredictable or counterintuitive.

The shocker is in the 66 comments to the original L.A Times.blog post referencing the study.

A disturbing sprinkling of commenters accepted the findings or (quibbled ineffectually) and professed their undiminished adherence to the imposition corporal discipline (often referencing with nostalgia spankings they themselves received as children…)

Thus::

“spanking a child, not beating, has nothing to do with IQ. In honesty, it probably helps most kids to be better mannered and respectful”

Of course, the simple assertion that the study’s findings will not be permitted to encumber the responder’s thinking falls somewhat short of reasoned discourse; the attempted distinction between “spanking” and “beating” is merely pathetic.

Another fan of spanking:

“I’m sure (emphasis added) spanking lowers IQ if you just spanked the kid and then gave them the IQ test. What about the ethical/moral foundation spanking provides?…The spanking I received as a kid was the best punishment for me…my parents cared enough to go to the trouble to correct my bad behavior”

Besides wilfully misstating the premise of the study (No one rushed in with an IQ test just after a brutalization by the parent), this beacon of parental intervention seems to think that the periodic experience of parent-inflicted terror is an essential building block of character.

A shocker in the study proper is the news that much spanking is done to babies as young as ONE YEAR OLD!!

24 nations forbid this sort of systematic brutalization of their own children.

That we permit it is surely another instance of American Exceptionalism to which the embattled armies of Reaction will point with pride!

I cannot share their breast swelling emotion. Personally, it makes me want to puke.

(Just parenthetically, yes, once again, I blame the Yahwists…)

Prez knows that only under the whip will Bibi curb his zeal for showing Achmadinajad what a holocaust really looks like. Therefor, Bibi needs to internalize the truth that Prez is serious about forbidding a bomb run and will prevent disobedience.

Watch for the video clip where he leans over Bibi’s ear for 30 seconds, and watch for the color to drain from Bibi’s face.

That will tell us that the message is delivered.

“We will not permit an attack on Iran, and we will interpose our Air Force to stop it.”

Anything short of that level of clarity will foreshadow the hypocritical quest for deniability after the fact.

Update: My post was unencumbered by actual research—in fact Prez has already indicated his disinclination to tolerate a “surprise”.

The way to avoid unpleasant facts on the ground, is to reliably promise to create facts in the air…

Update Two: Me and Zbig—brothers under the skin (who knew??) Zbig says: “We’re no pussies…”

If you were expecting a story out of the misogynist medievalist swamp that is today’s fundamentalist Islam, look closer to home.

In what I will without peradventure attribute to our own local plague of Yahwists, a woman convicted of performing a legal act rendered illegal by the exchange of cash (uniquely among legal acts…), ended up with a death sentence.

Your attention is respectfully called to the leniency meted out to her murderers .

“Three of those disciplined were fired, two stepped down in place of being fired, 10 received suspensions ranging from 40 to 80 hours, and one was demoted. Two others will be disciplined after they return from medical leave.”

No one went to jail; no one was even fuckin’ fined.!

There has been an occasional flash of anti-feminist revanchism on this board. If you sex negative women haters are out there, argue my point that only once she was branded as “unclean” by a bunch of stinking Yahweh worshippers could she have been treated as described, and her tormentors so lightly punished.

I do not wish to deconstruct the Arizona penal system as an outlier—maybe it is (pace, Sherriff Joe…,) may be not. I ask what it says about us as a people that we regard women who (brazenly!) openly have sex as such damaged goods that thay can be brutalized with impunity.?

I don’t pretend to have wide acquaintance with women’s penal institutional practices, but until otherwise convinced I will argue that only a woman incarcerated(!) for prostitution could be so vilely treated, before and after her death!

Update: The original AP story has been expanded, to reference interest from the Maricopa County DA—“developing…”

Buried in a pro/con analysis of the intraparty tussle over reconciliation as the sled to carry Health Care Reform over the finish line is the answer to a question oft posed in varying tones of incredulity:

Why is the Budget & Finance Chair the Big Kahuna on Health Care Reform instead of the HELP Chair (for instance).?

Mark Schmitt, editor of The American Prospect, and a former Finance Committee staffer. is quoted saying:

“If reconciliation became a free-for-all, it’s not just the minority party that would be cut out, the institutional prerogatives of most of the committees other than Budget and Finance would be drastically reduced”

Thus, the insistance that the bill brought to the Senate floor originate in Budget & Finance is in deference to the rule that limits the reconciliation process to BUDGET bills.! (duh)

Which means ( Prez having been joined at the hip to Baucus) that Rahmbo has already decided it’s reconciliation time.

That, of course, has policy implications which militate towards a robust public option.

I do think this plan is coming together….

Since it appears impossible to extend Medicare to all (largely because 3/4 of the cost is charged to the fisc), why not a fallback public option.

Simply calculate the actuarial algorithms needed to render VA care self-sufficiently accessible via premium payment by non-vets. The facilities are in place—the economies of scale are already formidable and would become more so; the information technology is already cutting edge. You are way less likely to be the victim of Medical Murder at a VA hospital.

Open door, stand back, and get out of the way of the *stampede…

Best of all, per late arriving info, the influx of eager public patrons seeking single provider services will enable existing VA facilities to avoid redundancy.

*Those in the know rate VA care best in the country.based on outcomes.

My neices used to call me “The Pharmacist” out of appreciation for my varied knowledge of psychotropics, but even I cannot find in my inventory the pill to cure the cognitive dissonance (pace Sal).that is making my head explode.

Glenn Greenwald’s latest must read, confronts us with the newest version of the face of evil, and (Holy Shit!) it’s Prez!. (supported by the usual supects).

33 Guantanamo detainees fought their way to in front of a Judge; 28 were found to have been held with NO REASONABLE GROUNDS FOR THE DETENTION (It is worth noting that the standard for reasonably detaining is LESS than the familiar “probable cause” which is needed to search a suspect AFTER reasonably detaining him.)

In other words, these men were kidnapped and held incommunicado for year after year for absolutely nothing. And yet we hold some of them still—in obdurate defiance of a judge’s ruling based upon all the “evidence” the administration could adduce, concoct or invent.

And this is the regime that Prez seems willing to perpetuate, export , even to codify with an elaborate Preventive Detention program (Hint: The Detention swallows up the Prevention).

OK, I knew that Prez wasn’t Robin Hood (or Kucinich, or Gravel—they were my guys,..), but I didn’t think he was King John!

“Hard cases”, it is said, make “bad law”. We like the outcome, but we deplore the rule.

The news from Swat presents just such a confrontation between a tremendously felicitous result (a genuine Taliban surrender!!—they actually found someone to play Tojo and someone to play McArthur.) and a broad sanction against the sort of remote, “death from above” kill the bad guy + everyone within 50 yards misslle strike that was used here.

In this case, we learn that as result of the assasination of Baitullah Mehsud in August (plus wife & kids, of course) the not entirely unpredictable struggle amongst his lieutenants has totally unravelled the same organization that had successfully forced a truce on the Pak government and then, in violation thereof, occupied and run the whole Swat valley for several months.

I am broadly inclined to the truth of the proposition that no individual’s death, when purchased at the cost of our committment to law and order, can ultimately be useful in a struggle where hearts and minds are the playing field. itself. (David Kilcullen presents a thoughtful *calculus for identifying potential exceptions to this rule and would surely consider Mehsud such.)

The particular Taliban in question, moreover, are especially **odious.

That said, I am disturbed to discover in myself this sentiment, which I must in candor disclose: ” I’m glad they snuffed you Ba’it-ullah! Rot in your Yahwist hell, you twisted perverted asshole!”.

So, does this make me a bad person?

*1) The target in question poses a threat to the international community (not solely to U.S. forces or interests in Afghanistan); AND 2) It is located in an area outside of effective Pakistani sovereignty (e.g. in a non-controlled area of the FATA or in a micro-haven elsewhere) AND 3) Pakistan has tried but failed to extend its sovereignty into the area, or to deal effectively with the target on its own; AND 4) The target is positively identified and clearly distinguishable from surrounding populations, reducing the risk of collateral damage to a level acceptable to elected political leaders.

**They also come at me where I live, so to speak; .”Earlier this year they executed one of the valley’s most popular dancers as part of a moral crusade to drive out public entertainment.”

Yves Smith.brings us a devastating *roster of heavyweights uniformly riding Paul Revere’s horse, Like a horror flick sequel, Nightmare on Wall Street, Two (“This time they had no one to blame but themselves…”) is coming.

Already on record, Liz Warren, (whose rise to overseer I will lay down to Josh until proven wrong…)

“All successful efforts to address bank crises have involved the combination of moving aside failed management and getting control of the process of valuing bank balance sheets,”

It is, I suppose, possible to give Prez the benefit of the doubt anent his acquiescence in the wholesale looting of the fisc by the Goldman Gang (Butch Paulson and Tim “The Manhattan Kid” Geithner)—perhaps he had his reasons.

That said, only a doofus would fail to ensure that a double-dip of public rescue would not end up on top of the apple pie at the Financiers’ Annual Dinner and Swap Meet (Every year at the Bohemian Grove near my home…)

Since Prez is not a doofus, may we not ask when he will bring the hammer down?

It’s one thing to lock the foxes in the coop while you consider humane methods of termination (of their employment…). Hiring them to take inventory and simultaneously letting them roll up a moving van and start loading hens makes no sense.

*Including Nobel Laureates up the yinyang as well as Sheila Bair, the cutest Federal Bank regulator in history.

Update: Sheila Bair says:To prevent a replay of last year’s crisis, investors in financial institutions, especially bondholders, must believe that they will lose money if banks fail,.(emphasis added)

Ya think??!!

Who can resist the temptation to offer a preferred version of the coming Great Speech.? I have my own ideas as to the desired mix of policy prescriptions and down home anecdotes, but my fantasy turns on the appropriate use of the *forum that Prez has chosen.

When, if not now, will he have the chance to look the crazy in the eye.

Admit it: If he says “You got some splainin’ to do…” it will be a hall-of-fame oratory moment.

*Why speak to the nation from in front Congress unless you use the opportunity show the assholes. up close. (Hint—they have neglected their Bleaching Regime…)(nsfw?)

Postspeech:

Well, he didn’t quite shake his finger at the Repugnants when he went off on them, but I would have to say that he gets a Gold Medal for Using Opposition As a Prop.

(Three style points for good natured acceptance of screw-the-trial lawyers standing O from Repugnant side of the room,…).

THE WELFARE OF ALL YOUNG OF THE SPECIES IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ALL ADULTS OF THE SPECIES

I will not waste bandwidth explaining the evolutionary mandate contained hereabove.

That said, what kind of a people lets ONE MILLION of their own children (yes, you Repugnant assholes these are all our children) live without a stable home.

Just for comparison, so you know how people who love their children do things in hard times, among France’s population of 60 million in 2006, we are told that there were 16,000 homeless kids.

American exceptionalism! You do the math…