Early morning chauffeuring duties coupled with an end of day power outage yesterday (tree branch hitting the transformer courtesy of the high winds). A bit behind in my reading but early in the week there never seems to be a shortage of news. And fake news.

Health insurance reform has nothing whatsoever to do with abortion, thanks to a cowardly decision by Obama’s team to write it out of the bill (all of them, whichever one they run with, all of the above period). So the PiPress dutifully runs a front page headline saying “Abortion issue making health care debate more complicated.”

The NYTimes article that follows describes the extraordinarily obstructive new strategy the health insurance companies have gamed up.

Abortion opponents in the House and the Senate are seeking to block the millions of middle- and lower-income people who might receive federal insurance subsidies to help them buy health coverage from using the money on plans that cover abortion. And the abortion opponents are getting enough support from moderate Democrats that both sides say the outcome is too close to call. Opponents of abortion cite as precedent a 30-year-old ban on the use of taxpayer money to pay for elective abortions.

Yes, 30 years of majoritarian cowardice does bite you in the ass on occasion. And since all healthcare insurers view wombs as a pre-existing condition, there’s no one to point out the ridiculousness of forcing people to use only the private carriers that offer Vatican-approved policies.

This is not about abortion, it’s about control freaks legislating their religious twaddle. Next will be AIDS exclusion (unholy lifestyle, etc.), then STD exclusion in general. Then they’ll go after the obese. It’s almost funny to see how the right uses that one both ways: Obama will force you to be healthy (nanny state) vs. Why should I have to pay higher rates because some people choose to be fat (laissez fuck-u-ism).

Anything to slow down the eventual bill because the entire Republican party has become little more than the Gotta Obstruct Party.

It’s like Middle Eastern terrorism. First you set off a small bomb, then you set off the bigger bomb when the ambulances arrive. Republicans break everything, then snipe at the repair crews.

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I didn’t even get to use my latest Rubashkin “slow down the courts” link before seeing this wire service  story about Agriprocessors’ CFO pleading guilty after cutting a deal with prosecutors.

Good luck to Sholom Rubashkin with his stalling strategy. Each day he awaits trial means he’ll be another day older when he gets out of prison.

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GOoPer gubernatorial candidate and wingnut job Tom Emmer makes the front page of the NY Times. He’s trying to sabotage one of the worst Baucus provisions (mandatory buy ins), but I’d bet anything that had Baucus left that out, Emmer’d be fighting to put it in.

Single payer.

Single payer.

As easy to do as it is to say.

Kill the insurance companies before they kill us.

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Bob Herbert on Bill and Melinda Gates and education. Gates plowing some of the money he stole back into our economy would not be a bad thing.

But mostly I suspect this will just be him giving away crappy MS software in exchange for huge tax breaks. I’ve been an MS Word power user forever, and I’ve never seen a useable product so degraded over time. Like Detroit building ‘em with bigger and bigger fins, Microsoft dicks with their software and makes it worse solely for the sake of leveraging new sales through compatibility issues.

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Blow on O’s latest poll job.

The economy is getting better. How do I know? The big corporations tell me so.

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Because you really can’t bloviate about American culture without mentioning Piss Christ.

Once upon a time Andres Serrano immersed a crucifix in a jar of his own urine, and “conservative” blowhards have been heavily into water sports ever since.

For your meanwhile moment of the day, might I suggest the second thoughts some are having about the timing of the Polanski arrest in Switzerland? As opposed to some other second thoughts.

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HEALTHCARE:

Timing off?

From niceminnesota, a video of courageous health insurance bureaucrats on D-Day

Even our allies are embarrassed for us

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APPLE PIE:

Add to the details slowly leaking out the fact that Bill Sparkman had duct tape covering his eyes (details so bizarre one POS wingnut blogger is alleging Sparkman was a sex criminal — not the victim of a sex crime but a perpetrator because Lord only knows that no one would ever kill a census worker for being a Fed, not even if that was written on his body)

Should Obama be killed?

Don’t we have an obligation to kill Hitler before he kills us?

Fascist dupes fear fascism? Would someone please buy them a dictionary?

Machine Gun socials

“bloody battle” time

Booing the faithful

More on Orly Taitz (still more)

ACORN is so very much the new “n” word

Workers are cheaper than safety in the land of cotton (candy)

Fox, fair and, um, Mormon friendly

It is, of course, OK when they do it

And it is never OK when we do this

Tears of a clown

Apple pie jr.

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ETC.:

Doomsdayism

Not having cable news, I keep mixing up the Kagans and Kardashians

A little late on this one, but Meet the Hazzards

A late link to Mick on unemployment

Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries

I bet they’d bitch about a statue of Thor, too

More god

If more white collar criminals went to real prisons, I bet the deterrent effect might actually kick in

Winning is hard, but doable

Balloon Juice picks up on my crusade to stop calling them conservatives

Go Pirates!

Honduras

Honduras? Not so much

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MN:

Mpls City Council candidate arrested at the G20

Teamsters back Rybak

Paper as therapy

Bachmann opponent picking up momentum

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Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, R.I.P.

And Basava Premanand, soon to be resting in peace.