There are a few senators that fight the good fight. But after seeing the behavior of senators from both parties, I don't hav confidence in their courage and principles.

Lawrence O Donnell was on Rachel Maddow show talking to Arianna.
One of his statements which I paraphrase loosely.
"Committee chairpersons are never evaluated on their performance."

Wow, not exactly a shocker, but when you hear someone who served as a chief of staff say that without any reservation, it really sinks in how the senators for the most part do not give a crap about the people. They are in it for their fraternity of senators.

"Homeland Security" is not even considered an important committee.

Seriously? So isn't that all the more reason why Democrats who are in a compromising mood feel emboldened to remove him of that and give him another committee? Instead Dodd and Salazar - Dodd will get no support from me the next time Republicans expose one of his financial scandals- come up with an insulting compromise that spits on the face of every concerned Democratic Party activist when they propose stripping Lieberman of some no name committee and let him retain Homeland Security.

Say what?? Why not just crap on our heads and get on with business as usual in the senate? Here is a link to a discussion of that proposal:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1 1/18/858/95471/442/662652

Now you got my favorite Senate dunce pretty boy - Evan Bayh aka Ferris Bueller's clueless dad. He, in my opinion, gave either a really naive stupid interview with Maddow or a very dishonest one where he said that Lieberman should apologize to them and what he said about Obama and others in the past crossed the line. But Bayh was careful enough never to link that apology explicitly to retaining the chairpersonship of that committee. We KNOW Lieberman will never give an apology of that type. So why would Evan Bayh say they need one? Because he was just trying to say something to save face on Maddow, not because he believed in it. The guy is a Democratic version of Dan Quayle. I could not believe it when some of our fellow Democrats were touting this idiot(I always felt that way about him, this is not hindsight talking) as potential President or VP.

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger

The Bush administration is squandering hundreds of billions of dollars on incompetence again.

In a House Domestic Policy Subcommittee hearing on Friday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, took Interim Assistant Treasury Secretary for Financial Stability Neel Kashkari (read: bailout chief) to task over the Treasury's decision to spend every cent of the first $350 billion in bailout funds buying up preferred stock in Wall Street icons and other banks, while allowing troubled borrowers to fend for themselves.

Can anyone honestly tell me how having Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State will tarnish the image of the United States?

Can anyone remember the cowboy diplomacy of "Dead or Alive", we will "Hunt him out", that cocky swagger into the United Nations W. did when he already decided to invade Iraq, the Mission Accomplished sign, the newspaper headings in foreign countries the day after the 2004 Election...my favorite reading "How can 53,000,000 people be wrong?"

Do any of you remember that?

Moreover, our current Secretary of State specializes in Russian affairs. How handy did that come into play the last four years.

Hillary is already showing broad support in the Senate for her confirmation, leaders across the globe are praising the choice (do the research), and let's not forget..........

OBAMA IS THE ONE WHO APPROACHED HILLARY.

He needs the smartest and the brightest...she will be the most loyal to our new President.

I put my Hillary sign back up with pride!

There are a couple of people who have the politics of the Lieberman committee assignment right, like Daniel DeGroot and Markos. But we haven't hit the right narrative yet (and it's probably too late to do so).

Joe Lieberman's vote is for sale.

The price: his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship.

We need to PUSH the narrative that Joe's thinly veiled threats about losing his committee chair being "unacceptable" are basically another way of saying, "If you want my vote, you'll have to pay for it."

Lieberman has already committed political suicide, first by running as an Independent, and then by backing McCain and other Republicans. If Lieberman were to defect to the Republican caucus, he would only be kicking his own political corpse. If our side had been able to put more pressure on Lieberman, such that everyone would clearly see his potential defection to the GOP for what it is--selling his vote--there is no way that he would be in the position he is now, holding all the cards in his standoff with Senate leadership.

As privatization of health insurance such as medicare has proceeded during the last few years, Americans have been largely insulated from the debate over genetic testing. Yet, as prices have been rising across the board, genetic testing holds out the potential of some people being able to refute geneological information in their MIB file, such as a statement that a parent died of cancer or some other disease, with geneological proof that one is not predisposed to that illness. This can save otherwise-uninsurable families or individuals money. (This kind of pricing does not apply to those in large group plans with more than around 50 members)

The increased probability of companies, legally or not of using genetic testing and asymmetrical information about family background for differentiating personal insurance premiums has a de-facto effect of creating an uninsurable 'underclass'--an uninsurable high-risk population composed of those with chronic illness and genetic predispositions, and the known children of those people. (In fact, such classes of information are already being sold, internationally, for use in pre-employment screening)

Insurance companies defend their right to use any genetic information voluntarily surrendered, such as in doctors office intake forms. However, recent legislation has restricted their right to ask for genetic pretesting, an approach with lots of loopholes. This approach also forces many very sick people who are afraid about job loss to go without needed care, afraid that a diagnosis of cancer or diabetes or even un unexplained fever that required a workup that showed some abnormal hematology at the wrong time could make one and one's children unable to purchase individual or family health insurance in the future.

The common way of handling this problem in many other developed countries around the North Atlantic, has been to regulate insurance companies' right to ask for and USE genetic information in various ways.

There is a distinction between partial regulation (that allows insurance companies access to genetic information from genetic tests already made, sometimes only above a specified amount, but not to demand new tests) and total regulation (that forbids insurance companies to ask for or use any genetic information).

I will argue that these forms of regulation probably will have adverse consequences in countries that are undergoing a dismantling of collective social insurance systems because they will allow the insurance companies to deny or price away, or even reciss the coverage retroactively of larger groups of people based on the arguement that they do not know anything about their genetic status but they may have had some sign indicating that they may get a serious disease when they signed up and did not disclose it adequately.

If this is convincing, a better way to solve the problem of an uninsurable high-risk population (and other problems) is to institute a single payer, obligatory insurance systems in which the individual risk profile does not constitute a basis for premium determination. Both arguments cast in terms of consequences and justice render support for this conclusion.

So Newt Gingrich, the spokesperson for pious corporate racists (aka GOP) spouts off on O'Reilly about how advocates of Gay Rights are 'radicals' intent on Facism.

Gingrich: "[T]here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us"

Thanks to Media Matters

(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)

So YOUR Rodham-Clinton has found a way to inject herself into presidential politics after all.  Hussein-Obama apparently will offer the old bat secretary of state and she, of course, will accept.

Which raises some interesting questions.  Now, being lunatic lefties as your are, most of the time you won't answer my questions.  But somehow I suspect you might this time.

1)Let's say Old Rodham-Clinton has a very different perspective on an issue then does Hussein, the black president.  How can Barry O be sure she'd hew to his policy, particularly when ORC always believed she was the more knowledgeable of the two?

2)Whatever happened to the concept of the vanquished leaving the field of battle to the victor to enjoy the spoils?  I mean, didn't Ollddd Rodham-Clinton compete with Barry O; didn't she say he wasn't prepared to lead as was she?  Would ORC have offered Hussein anything of consequence if she was in his position and he was in hers?  

3)The election is over, why does he feel he needs to reach out to Rodham-Clinton supporters?  Is he already beginning his re-election campaign?

4)What exactly did New York's electorate get from  Rodham-Clinton serving as their senator?  For 18 months the old bat was running around playing presidential candidate, drawing a 175k salary without performing a senator's duties.  When that didn't pan out, at the first opportunity she moves on to another job.  Moreover, ORC only moved to New York to run for the senate as a precursor to run for first lady, or whatever office she thought she was running for?

5)If Hussein is defeated by a newly resurgent Republican presidential campaign in four years -- god willing -- what will Ollllddd Rodham-Clinton do then?

6)And lastly, why are you lunatic lefties even allowed to vote?

The lines often drawn on issues concerning gay rights is that all churches are against those rights. Indeed, you can regularly see posters here making such claims.

This is a simplistic statement that does not represent the reality. The real debate on the religious level is not between believers and non-believers. The debate is between those Christians who accept homosexuality and respect separation and church and state, and those churches that are theocratic. The later are the churches, which believe that they can legislate behavior based on belief. The later are anti-progressive.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti cle/ALeqM5gGRIalpVsv411_GOSMBWRdX-viBQD9 4H25U00

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