Home add your blog Archives Search Book Reviews Forum Contact RSS FEED

This site is an rss/xml news reader containing our favorite feeds. All articles are the copyrighted material of the blogs that wrote them.

Hoyer: 'You will have coverage that you can
depend upon'

post from Everyday Citizen on 07 November 2009 03:20:55 PM. © Everyday Citizen

U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) signaled yesterday that it is his expectation[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/11/hoyer_you_will_have_coverage_t.html

Digg this

Midday open thread

post from Daily Kos on 07 November 2009 03:16:03 PM. © Daily Kos

History is being made today in more ways than one:

Rep. Dingell to preside over House for first time since 1965 Medicare vote. Democrats wavering on the health care bill will have their heart-strings tugged by the man overseeing today's planned vote: Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the Dean of the House of Representatives and the longest-serving member in history.

Dingell's late father, also a congressman, introduced the first bill to provide national health insurance in 1933, and his son has continued a tradition started by his father by introducing health care legislation at the beginning of every session of Congress.

Rep. Dingell last led debate on a vote on April 8, 1965, the day the House passed legislation creating Medicare, according to his office.

At long last, someone in the traditional media names the NY-23 race for what it was: In a Solidly Republican District, Disaster for the National Party.

The White House this morning released a statement announcing that the President and First Lady will be traveling to Fort Hood for a memorial service this coming Tuesday.

Will you read this post?

Face it, says Bill Scher, we are a center-left nation.

Lori at Feminsting has a thoughtful essay on what it means when presidencies are viewed as partnerships between two gifted spouses, one of them unpaid and unofficial.

James Fallows on the meaningless of the Fort Hood shootings:

In the saturation coverage right after the events, the "expert" talking heads are compelled to offer theories about the causes and consequences. In the following days and weeks, newspapers and magazine will have their theories too. Looking back, we can see that all such efforts are futile. The shootings never mean anything. Forty years later, what did the Charles Whitman massacre "mean"? A decade later, do we "know" anything about Columbine? There is chaos and evil in life. Some people go crazy. In America, they do so with guns; in many countries, with knives; in Japan, sometimes poison.

We know the emptiness of these events in retrospect, though we suppress that knowledge when the violence erupts as it is doing now. The cable-news platoons tonight are offering all their theories and thought-drops. They've got to fill time. I wish they could stop. As the Vietnam-era saying went, Don't mean nothing.

BlueGal has an excellent take on the anxiety created by the educational crapshoot in this country after she attends a meeting for parents interested in getting their kids in the highly desirable magnet schools in her district.

Newborns cry with an accent, study finds.

John Cole on that old-time liberal media canard:

I seriously do not get this country. The subservience to the Republicans by the media at least made sense when they were in the majority and held the Presidency in 2001. But this is 2009, the Republicans have been routed electorally for the past few years, everything the Republican party believed in failed miserably the last eight years and they have been exposed as total frauds, they released a budget with no numbers on April Fools day, they have been whipping up teabaggers and gun nuts into a froth for months and screaming about death panels because they have no ideas or solutions, and when they finally do release their health care "plan," it totally and completely sucks. It is nothing but fail, fail, fail, from the GOP, they just lost two more seats in the house, they are going through a horrible (yet delicious) civil war, yet according to the media, everything is bad news for Democrats.....

I can’t tell what is a bigger joke- the Republicans, or our failed media experiment. Three decades of screaming liberal media bias is about the only smart long-term thing republicans have done in my lifetime.

Check out how diet affects weight around the world in an interactive graphic.

A 140-million-year-old spider web is found preserved as a fossil on an English beach.

Survey says file sharers are big buyers too.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/H0NUvlYtpBY/-Midday-open-thread

Digg this

Marsha Blackburn Claims Health Care Bill is
"Sacrificing the Future of Our Children and Grandchildren"

post from Crooks and Liars on 07 November 2009 03:00:59 PM. © Crooks and Liars

DOWNLOADS: (87)
PLAYS: (191)

Marsha Blackburn does a good job of turning into a drama queen when it suits her, doesn't she? During the debate on the House floor over the health care bill being voted on today, Blackburn railed on about who's going to pay for this. I want to know when she's ever asked the same question about paying for war funding?

Read The Full Article:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/marsha-blackburn-claims-health-care-b
ill-s

Digg this

GOP objects to women, rest of Americans

post from Everyday Citizen on 07 November 2009 02:52:17 PM. © Everyday Citizen

[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/11/gop_objects_to_women_rest_of_a.html

Digg this

Andrew Sullivan: Gaza War Was "Immoral and
Counter-productive. An Act of Anger and Vengeance And Cruelty"

post from TPMCafe on 07 November 2009 02:50:00 PM. © TPMCafe

Andrew Sullivan has been a life-long supporter of the State of Israel. His ardor for Israel was demonstrated weekly when, as a twenty-something, he edited The New Republic -- owned by Martin Peretz, one of the most extreme neocons in the country.

No more. The Gaza war did it. This is what he writes today, "I suspect in due course that Gaza will be understood as immoral, and counter-productive. It repelled me in a way that nothing Israel has done repelled me. It was an act of anger and vengeance and cruelty. And it will come back to haunt the Jewish state," he writes.

Andrew Sullivan is no enemy of Israel. In the words of his colleague, Jeff Goldberg of the Atlantic, an ardent Israel firster, "I know Andrew loves Israel, and he's a Zionist."

That makes Sullivan's criticism all the more significant. Times are changing. As for that appalling vote on Goldstone, it's a blip. History only moves forward, sometimes in starts and lurches, but ultimately forward. The occupation of the '67 territories has become a stench in the nostril of mankind.

Israel - Andrew Sullivan - Martin Peretz - New Republic - Gaza War

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tpmcafe-main/~3/_IZiSuJ3jo4/

Digg this

HCR House Debate: The President's Pep Rally

post from Daily Kos on 07 November 2009 02:42:44 PM. © Daily Kos

Obama met with the House Democratic caucus this morning. Sam Stein has a report on his message:

The president, according multiple attendees, played the role of political prognosticator during his roughly 30 minute address before Democratic caucus members on Capitol Hill. Addressing, implicitly, those conservative Democrats who are worried about voting for a nearly trillion dollar health care overhaul, he insisted that they would not be safe from partisan attack even if they opposed the bill.

"He certainly talked about the politics and he said that the Republicans want us to fail and no one should feel if they as a Democrat helped us to fail that they would be [free of their attacks]," said Rep. Henry Waxman, chair of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

"None of you can expect the Republicans not to go after you if you vote against this bill," Waxman continued, channeling the president. "They want this bill to go down for their own partisan reasons."

Another high-ranking Democratic hill staffer briefed on the meeting put it this way: "Obama's main message was that the GOP won't go any easier on you if you vote against the bill. It's a tough vote, yes, but they're going to take heat either way."

There's more here:

The president, according to a senior Democratic aide who attended his discussion, told House Dems that newly-elected Rep. Bill Owens proved that members could run on a platform of comprehensive reform and still be elected to Congress.

"He said to look at Bill Owens," the aide recalled. "There is a House seat that's been in Republican hands for more than one hundred years. But Owens didn't run away from reform. He campaigned on it. And he still got elected."

That's a very good message for the Blue Dogs to hear from their President. It won't make a damned bit of difference to Minnick or Taylor or Tanner who were never going to vote for it anyway, but good for him for calling out those large numbers who wouldn't be risking much at all in supporting this bill.

In his prepared remarks after the meeting he pushed again for passage:

I just came from the Hill where I talked to the members of Congress there, and I reminded them that opportunities like this come around maybe once in a generation. Most public servants pass through their entire careers without a chance to make as important a difference in the lives of their constituents and the life of this country. This is their moment, this is our moment, to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us -- even when it's hard; especially when it's hard. This is our moment to deliver.

I urge members of Congress to rise to this moment. Answer the call of history, and vote yes for health insurance reform for America.

His full remarks are below the fold.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/tVncdg36UU8/-HCR-House-Debate:-The
-Presidents-Pep-Rally

Digg this

Live Blog: Health Care Reform Bill Debate Begins

post from Firedoglake on 07 November 2009 02:35:11 PM. © Firedoglake

e’re going to put up a thread here to share the debate. Oh, and the frustration — I’m sure we all of us don’t want to suffer this alone.2:00 p.m. EST — Rep. Steny Hoyer making the expected acknowledgment of the historic[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://firedoglake.com/2009/11/07/live-blog-health-care-reform-bill-debate-begins
/

Digg this

Does Endlessly Searching Mean Never Satisfied

What's an ENFJ? Me, for one. It?s one of the 16 types of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. ENFJ stands for Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging. It?s known as the Teacher type, and it?s no surprise that the first really influential ENFJ in my life was my high school U.S. History teacher, Mrs. Claiborne. One reason we clicked so easily back in 1979 was that we were fundamentally so similar.

The core of the ENFJ type is the NF part ? intuitive feeling. Intuitive in the Myers-Briggs sense refers to observing life by looking at the big picture rather than details, favoring ideas over concrete reality, and enjoying newness for the sake of newness. Feeling in the Myers-Briggs sense means making decisions based on strongly held personal values or on the effects on other people rather than through logic and strict objectivity.

When you mix Myers-Briggs type factors you also get something else, just as when you mix blue and yellow you get green. One characteristic of NFs is that we are, for the most part, endlessly searching ? searching for meaning, searching for purpose, searching for passion, searching for the reasons we are always searching. This is true of all NF types ? ENFJs, ENFPs, INFJs and INFPs.

Searchers ask lots of questions: What do I really want to do with my career? What do I even like doing? What if what I should be doing with my career is something I haven?t even thought of? I like New York but should I really be living somewhere else? Like Istanbul? Or China? Am I meant to have children? Or do I just think I want to have children? Or maybe having children is not something for me to decide, but something that the Universe will just present me . . . Except that I don?t really believe in the Universe as an entity. Except when I do. . .

You may think that I am making up these questions for comic effect but I can assure you they are all questions that I have asked myself. Recently. I have an ongoing internal dialogue with myself, sort of like the news ticker that runs at the bottom of CNN broadcasts.

Nearly all of my NF clients are very interested in the question of what they should be doing with their lives, and somewhat fearful that they might not make the right choice. They are interested in the coaching process yet can?t help questioning whether any process can ever work. They are good at whipping up enthusiasm and also at sowing doubts. They want to be special but wonder whether specialness is possible. I am never surprised by these dualities because they reflect how I think, too.

Here?s the conundrum for intuitive feelers. For most of us, no answer is ever going to be the answer. So if we aren?t careful, we can end up spending decades feeling in some way dissatisfied with the lives that we?ve got.

It doesn?t have to be this way. It?s possible to be a satisfied searcher. Not by finally getting to the answer, but by having awareness about what our own operating systems are like and consciously managing them.

For me, the trick is to remember that my propensity for searching, wondering and questioning isn?t my whole self. It?s an aspect of myself. I can use my searching tendencies, and I can get beyond them. So I can wonder about ten different career possibilities, and then actually choose one (for the time-being). I can ponder the roads not taken in the past, and then accept the roads I have taken. And when I get to the downward spiraling place of wondering how I ended up this life rather than another, I can remind myself, ?This kind of self-reflection comes naturally to me. But I don?t have to indulge it 24/7.?

We can use our powers for good. Just because we?re never done searching doesn?t mean we can?t be satisfied with the way life is.

Read The Full Article:
http://thecreativelawyer.typepad.com/the_creative_lawyer/2009/11/does-endlessly-s
earching-mean-never-satisfied.html

Digg this

Stupak: A Pac With Seven Stupid People

The Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts-Kaptur-Dahlkemper-Lipinski-Smith Amendment, to the health care reform bill (H.R. 3962)is being voted on today. Reportedly, it prevents federal funding of abortion and health insurance plans which include abortion coverage(Hyde Amendment). Supposedly, it will not affect coverage of abortion in non-subsidized health plans, and will not bar anyone from purchasing a supplemental abortion policy with their own funds. [More...]

Planned Parenthood breaks it down. At 2pm (ET), the House just began four more hours of debate on the bill.

Ezra reports it says:

The amendment will prohibit federal funds for abortion services in the public option. It also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. However, it allows individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans may still offer elective abortions.

Without it, the Blue Dogs say they won't vote for the health care bill. Meaning the Health Care bill might not pass. If the Stupak Amendment passes, the blue dogs will vote for the health care bill, and it will be just another sacrifice women -- particularly poor women -- will have to make.