In Iraq under Saddam, population demographic breakouts were a state secret and it was an article of Baathist faith that Sunnis were the majority (and thus entitled to their privileged status). One of the things that drove Sunnis into terrorism during the worst years was the unshakable conviction that the reason that, given their majority status, the only explanation for their electoral defeats was fraud on a massive scale.

These people already have a ready-made fraud mythology in place when the inevitable defeats come for them. ACORN, Soros, Chicago-mob clout politics, illegal aliens sneaking onto voter rolls, corrupt politicians resisting the voice of the majority and, thus, hell-bent on imposing totalitarianism. When they lose, the nuttiness is going to go supernova, and at that point, well, it would really only take a couple of thousand of them turning terrorist to tear the guts out of the country for several years.

The second source of change in average insurance premiums is changes in the average extent of coverage purchased. Those changes can reflect both changes in the scope of insurance coverage—the benefits or services that are included—and changes in the share of costs for covered services paid by the insurer—known as the “actuarial value.” With other factors held equal, insurance policies that cover more benefits or services or have smaller copayments or deductibles have higher premiums, while policies that cover fewer benefits or services or have larger copayments or deductibles have lower premiums. Provisions in the amendment that would reduce insurance premiums by affecting the amount of coverage purchased include the State Innovations program, which would encourage states to reduce the number and extent of benefit mandates that they impose, and provisions that would allow individuals or affiliated groups to purchase insurance policies in other states that have less stringent mandates.

In other words, the bill implements a fix for what the Republicans have more or less openly been identifying as the "real" problem: Americans just have too gosh darned much insurance coverage. All that excessive coverage insulates us from the true cost of health care, causing to not question whether we really need all these tests and treatments and such that heedless doctors keep ordering. And that's totally true. It's like back about ten years when my G.P. referred me to a neurologist to determine whether some symptoms I was having were caused by a brain tumor, I totally didn't give a second's thought to whether I really needed that expensive CT scan they ordered. And, wouldn'tja know it, it turned out to be totally unnecessary because it came up negative. Man, what a total waste of resources that turned out to be, all because I had insurance.

They're not saying the bill would hold premiums constant at, or decrease them from, 2009 levels. Rather, they would reduce the anticipated increase over ten yers by 0 to 3 percent. Since premiums are projected to double over that time period, the CBO is basically saying this bill does nada, zero, zip, bupkis, or the next thing to it, to reduce the anticipated increase in premiums.

Spend money. Accomplish nothing except a small reduction in future government outlays that's much smaller than the reduction from either the House or the Senate Democrats' bill. Heckuva job, Brownie.

Here's Exhibit A. The Republican agenda is, and for decades has been, one of demolition. Slash taxes. Gut or destroy agencies. Block enforcement of regulations or repeal them altogether. Wreck faith in the ability of government to accomplish anything other than war, executions, and controlling the brown people. During those decades, the Democratic strategy and agenda was to stand between the wrecking ball and the all the stuff they built that the Republicans were tearing down. Obviously, there was usually a tendency to break and run at the last minute and many decided it was preferable to stand behind the maniacs at the controls.

Now, Democrats are actually trying to build stuff again--rebuild the destroyed stuff and build entirely new stuff. Their old joints are a bit stiff and creaky. Their old construction skills have atrophied a bit and things that used to come naturally to them are often a bit forced. They're having to reinvent stuff that used to be part of the institutional memory. Some of them tasked with working the high steel have lost, or never had, the necessary head for heights. And some of them are still so traumatized by that old wrecking ball that they're still cowering behind bits of old rubble. But they're building again.

Republicans, by contrast, know only demolition and destruction, violence and vandalism. The mere sight of construction equipment fills the with fear and a pile of construction materials works them into a frenzy of nihilism.

So when someone says, "okay, boys, we're don't have to actually build anything, but we're going to have to at least put together a pretend plan," they proudly present you with a blueprint for assembling a handful of Tinkertoys and Legos into a device that does nothing.

You're horribly afraid of stuff that doesn't exist. Like five year olds. Don't you think maybe that's at least good an explanation for the the dismissive way you get treated as this big evil conspiracy you think exists?

Excellent blog, excellent comments, agree with it all except that I think the comparison to the Cons is unfair to the Visigoths.

DeMint is the scariest person holding office today. He projects the kind of banal certitude that is appealing to the authoritarian mind and hypnotically soothing to the CW spinning MSM reporter.

If the GOP doesn't disintegrate first, it could totally happen. We become complacent about them and what's happening to them at our, and the world's, peril.

Actually, that's progress of a kind. Heretofore, claiming that you had a country other than South Carolina was political heresy of the first order down there.

. . . says the imbecile responsible for cutting the most stimulative spending out of the stimulus bill.

Still, listening to Juan Williams, of all people, determinedly and systematically shooting down Renee Montaigne's (possibly Socratic rather than stupid) efforts to paint last night as a referendum on Obama with actual data and analysis of exit polling was oddly heartening. Made me wonder if, for once, the MSM isn't going to give in to teh' stoopid without a fight.

And, even if they are, a week from now, there'll be a backlash the instant CW that will become the new CW and in ten days, no one will even remember last night happened.

And Christina? I know conditioned reflex is hard to resist, but you really need to come to emotional grips with the fact that Rev. Moon doesn't have the power to put you out on the street anymore. And neither does John Solomon.

Though, come to think of it, given that a red tide is a sudden, pollution-spawned bloom of mindless single-celled organisms that choke the life out of all higher life-forms in the vicinity before exhausting the artificially created burst of nutrients and dying,leaving only a dead zone as a clue it ever existed, maybe it was a well-chosen metaphor after all.

I also predict that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Has nothing to do with them being unable to get coverage due to preexisting conditions or inability to obtain coverage because they lack government subsidies or because insurers treat the individually insured differently from their large customers.

Why, I'll bet if you went to any of the millions of uninsured in this country and said "hey, we're going to help you out with the cost of insurance and we'll make sure they don't give you a different rate just because you're not employed by a big company or claim your acne was an "undisclosed preexisting condition" justifying recission, or refuse to insure you because you've been sick but there's a catch: you'll have to buy insurance from a private insurer," they'd spit in your face and tell you to go straight to hell, such is their rightous hatred of the insurers.

And hey, even if they were so misguided as to say "yes, please, thank you! Even with the help it'll be tight, but that will lift the horrible burden of worring about my family's health from my shoulders," it would still be better to let them all die than to see one red cent of extra profit go into the pockets of those horrible companies. What are their lives compared to our precious principles, after all?

Well shucks, Ben, which Democrats do you think will join the Republicans in opposing cloture, thwarting their party's primary domestic policy initiative of this Congress and thereby likely costing them the majority? Please do tell. We're quivering with anticipation. Gee, sure doesn't sound like you'll be one of them from the way you're talking.

Thing is, this story is kind of the opposite of news because it presents an "all Cretans are liars" problem.

If there is a deal and Lieberman is just posturing for effect, this is what they'd say. If there's no deal, this is what they'd say. If there was a deal but Lieberman reneged because he was upset about the leak, this is what they'd say. There are simply no circumstances that don't involve sodium pentathal where they'd admit the existence of a deal if there was one and they'd only tell the truth if there wasn't.

Hmmmmm, what is it about Virginia, as opposed to the other 49 states, that could possibly cause people in D.C. to overestimate the importance and national prominence of Virginia politicians? Hmmmm, hmmmmm. Nope, not comin' up with anything here.

But I don't trust him to respond rationally to leadership's inputs and anyone who does is a fool. At best, it just means he's going to go public with his opposition to some other matter of critical concern to leadership and the Administration.