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The difference between Karen Weymouth and a whore is that the whore has some measure of dignity and self-respect, and costs less.

Charles Kaiser has the obituary:

The Washington Post died today. It was five months short of its 132nd birthday.

News of the demise of the once-great news gathering organization came in a story by Mike Allen at Politico.com, which reported that Post publisher Katharine Weymouth has decided to solicit payoffs of between $25,000 and $250,000 from Washington lobbyists, in return for one or more private dinners in her home, where lucky lobbyists will receive a chance for “your organization’s CEO” to interact with “Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post” and “key Obama administration and congressional leaders …”

The decision by the Post’s publisher to sell access to government officials was the latest–and by far, the most horrific–in a series of disastrous decisions in the last two weeks which, taken together, have destroyed what was once one of the proudest finest brands in American journalism.

And that’s the NICE stuff.

In a chat today on washingtonpost.com, Post Congressional reporter Paul Kane cited Brauchli’s memo as proof that the newsroom would not participate in these confabs–even though the statement of the company’s corporate spokeswoman directly contradicted that. And even if newsroom staffers are excluded from these dinners, the idea that the paper’s publisher would be selling this kind of access remains far, far, far beyond the pale.

Early indications of the collapse of judgement at the Washington news organizations included the decision to allow Glenn Beck to host a chat at washingtpost.com-–a scant two weeks before Beck hosted certifiably-maniacal Michael Scheuer on his own program, so that Scheuer could strongly advocate a massive new terrorist attack on the United States by Osama Bin Laden.

Next came the firing of Dan Froomkin, the best and most original reporter on the Post’s website–presumably because Froomkin wrote so many accurate stories pointing up the inadequacies of the national staff of the Post.

But both of those events paled next to this morning’s news, which was leaked to Politico by a healthcare lobbyist. In a piece of remarkable understatement, Mike Allen wrote, “it’s a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.”

Go read the rest, it’s brutal.

It’s a time to slip out of my skin, and get back to what really matters: family, friends, community, and music. I’m picking up Sam tonight around 9:00 PM (I was hoping to make the trip to OATS tonight, and then get him in the AM, but it looks like we’re on the road til about midnight), pitching camp in the dark, and settling in for a few days.

See you on the other side of Sunday!

CBO’s new score of the bill - which would reduce health costs, allow Americans to keep the coverage they have if they want it, and make health insurance affordable to those who do not have it today - would be $611 billion over 10 years, a significant reduction from earlier, incomplete estimates. The new estimate includes a provision on employer responsibility and a strong, national public option, the Community Health Insurance Option….

Small businesses, NOT TO INCLUDE businesses with fewer than 25 employees who would be exempted (PDF), would have an annual fee of $750 per employee for participation in the public option plan that would be assessed directly through HHS if they aren’t already providing insurance for employees. There would be a cost of a little over $300 per person for individual coverage on an annual basis. Both these numbers come from CBO scoring as well, and are contained within the CBO information link above….

For consumers to buy into the public plan, there is a firewall built-in if you are already part of an employer-based health plan. If your plan costs more than 12 1/2% of your annual salary, then you can contemplate switching to the public option. If not, then you are stuck with your employer-based plan, whether or not you are satisfied with it. It’s a cost containment decision, with the hope that competition from the public plan will, over time, shift the operations of private insurers.

Sen. Brown emphasized that this plan is designed to reward “best practices” for insurers — and that each state will have an advisory council to monitor local competition in an effort to keep insurers more competitive and, hence, he says, more honest….

I was told that the bill contains protections for people who have had to deal with recission issues and/or who have pre-exisiting conditions which make it difficult to find or switch coverage. Insurers will be barred from refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions going forward under this bill — there is a requirement for coverage for all, and a ban on insurance ratings for pre-existing conditions as well.

Not perfect (and slinkerwink at Daily Kos will explain how and why in a must-read diary) but a damn sight better than what i was expecting. call Kay Hagan at 202-224-6342: she as going to oppose a public option, but apparently changed her mind. And if you live in PA, call Bob Casey and say thanks, because he really has been leading on this issue. As most of you know, I am harshly critical of the Senator when he deserves it, but when he does the right thing i like to lavish on the praise. Make Bob feel good, he deserves it. And make sure you remember in November that he stood up for you: 202-224-6324.

but most of all, thank yourselves. Every one of us who called and complained and put pressure on these guys are the real heroes here. We wouldn’t take no for an

Nest step: humiliating Max Baucus on the Finance Committee, mocking Joe Lieberman, and putting the screws to Mary Landrieu.

And because it’s worth reading, I’m gonna quote slink at length:

Austin, Tex.: Is the public option in the HELP draft stronger or weaker than the Tri-Committee House draft and why?

Ezra Klein: No, it’s a lot weaker. The Tri-Committee draft uses Medicare bargaining rate and the Medicare provider network and is open to everyone through a robust national health insurance exchange. The HELP plan can’t partner with Medicare and is in a much weaker health insurance exchange — CBO predicts that only 27 million people will have access to it by 2019.

Let me be clear on this, the Senate HELP committee draft bill regarding the public option is a good one, but it’s a lot weaker than the Tri-Committee House draft bill. The good news is that all 13 members of the HELP Committee will vote this bill out of committee and onto the floor. The bad news is that it’d have to be merged with the bill from the Finance Committee which reportedly has a co-op plan to replace the public option….

Right now, we’re in a better position today due to having two bills, one from the House Tri-Committees, and one from the Senate HELP Committee, with a good public option. If the Senate HELP Committee makes it through the Senate intact with its public option, and is the one supported over Max Baucus’s Finance Bill, then it’ll have to be reconciled with the House Tri-Committee version. So theoretically the public option in that could be made stronger in the conference process.

go read the rest. This is one battle in a long hard slog. let’s win it.

I know I can’t find a mammogram for less than 150.00 which means I don’t get one.

–Christina S., Facebook

Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake:

I’ve been fighting breast cancer for 16 years now, and am gratefully in recovery from my third bout.

I’m lucky to be one of the ones who fought and won, but there are many who fought and lost. …

Fighting for your life and knowing you could lose everything you have in the process is agonizing.

So when I see women like Kay Hagan who oppose a public plan because she wants “to ensure private health insurance isn’t going to be destabilized,” I take it pretty personally.

Then there’s Olympia Snowe, who worries that a public plan will keep prices low and cut into insurance company profits, because keeping the Blue Cross healthy is evidently more important than keeping the public healthy.

And there’s Diane Feinstein who says criticism from the left “doesn’t move me one whit” when it comes to supporting a public plan, as if her vote is a matter of personal fancy and not her responsibility as a public servant. (This from a woman who has never worried for one minute about how she could pay for a catastrophic illness — most of us don’t have the luxury of casting votes to award our husbands billions of dollars in government contracts.)

There’s Mary Landrieu, who says a public plan “undermines the essence of our efforts to create a real market-based private sector model,” and Blanche Lincoln, who worries about “usurping” the insurance industry’s ability “to compete in the marketplace.”

Well, none of them will ever have to worry about what it’s like to be at the mercy of the insurance industry when your life hangs in the balance.. They’ll enjoy being a part of the Federal Employee Benefits Program for life, so they are free to focus on keeping their millions campaign donations from the insurance industry flowing.

So when Kay Hagan says “she wants “to ensure private health insurance isn’t going to be destabilized”, what she means is “My campaign funders mean more to me than my constituents’ health”.

Christina S., who is my age, continues:

I gotta be 50 to qualify for a low cost one from a local charity here… 9 1/2 years till that happens….and the clinic can deny me Birth Control if I don’t get it….

While my friend can’t afford to get her breast checked out, Kay Hagan and her colleagues enjoy lifetime health care, paid for by you and me, without having to take so much as a medical examination.

So Jane wants you to send Kay a message. I’ve signed on and hope you will too. Call her as well: 202-224-6342 (tell her you’re from Greensboro, zip code 27408 or from Raleigh, zip code 27601).

Kay is being a real fucking bitch on the issue, and someone needs to whip her into shape. Why not you?

My kid’s mom was evacuated from the World Trade Center that day. A guy I knew in high school died in the attack. My friend Claiborne’s brother was on his way to work at the WTC, when he saw the planes fly into the buildings, and couldn’t call his family to tell them he was alive. My friend Rupa’s boyfriend worked in the plaza, and walked across the city covered in ash and debris to the school where she worked so she’d know he was alive.

And you, you fat pompous fucking asshole, you want this to happen a second time? Because you’re pissing your pants over immigrants??

OK, I’ll take you up on that one: but only if the bombs are set off in YOUR house, with YOUR FAMILY inside, you fucking piece of shit. That way you can watch your loved ones perish, and then maybe you’ll know how the 9/11 victims’ families feel.

And that’s a highly qualified “maybe”, because quite frankly, I think you’re a sociopath and incapable of feeling anything other than your own persecution complex.

In an Associated Press interview in Portland, Snowe said it would be unfair to include a government-run health insurance option that would take effect immediately.

“If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market … the public option will have significant price advantages,” she said.

My friend Chris, who i don’t believe is from Maine, adds:

Well, duh. That is the whole point. You can’t lower the price of health insurance unless you start offering lower-priced health insurance. It’s a tautology.

So, naturally, during the fight to lower the price of health insurance, so-called moderate Senators think that the problem with the public option is that it would… lower the price of health insurance. While it may be news to so-called moderate Senators, protecting the crappy products of large corporations is not their job description.

Having visited your wonderful state on numerous occasions, I know that many of you are actually very smart, resourceful people. It must be difficult to be represented by two horse posteriors. I sympathize: in my state, one Democrat is a pro-life, pro-death penalty schmuck who thinks people should carry loaded concealed weapons in national parks, while the other Democrat is actually a Republican so loathed he can’t even win his own primary.

But I digress. Snowe’s giving you a bad name. Please dispose of her at your earliest convenience.

love,
brendan

A must see video.

But here’s an ugly little truth: we’re not getting single payer health care in this country anytime soon. in fact, I doubt we’re even going to get a watered down “public option”. and the reason for this is that the Democrats have never meant a word they said when they’ve talked about universal health care. they are owned, part and parcel, by the banks, the insurance industry, and by enormous corporations.

“Single payer health care”, to these people, is a campaign slogan about as meaningful as “a chicken in every pot”.

so keep calling the feckless bastards and force them to vote the way you want them to. and make sure they know that you’ll remember in November.

“What’s my beef?” mutters Bob. “WHAT’S MY BEEF? C’MERE, I’LL SHOW YOU WHAT’S THE PROBLEM!”

He leads the bartender to the window, and points out at the biggest skyscraper in the city. “Ya see that building?” the angry drunk says. “I’ll bet you don’t know this, but I’m the architect who designed it. Not only that, I was the head of the construction crew. I practically built the thing with my bare hands. Do they call me ‘Bob the Skyscraper Builder’? No.”

Bob points to the entrance to the subway a block away. “You know who came up with the plans, the capital, AND the building crew for the subway? That’s right: ME. Do they call me ‘Subway Bob’? No.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a rumpled piece of newspaper. “See this?” he says. “It’s a review of my opening at the MOMA in New York from 6 years ago. Rave fuckin’ reviews. But do they call me ‘Bob the Artist’? No. They do NOT.”

He sighs irritably. “But you fuck one goddamn dog…”

That’s how Michael Jackson must feel right now. All I’ve been hearing for the past three days is one Michael Jackson joke after the other.

The real disaster, one fan said, was just outside the ballpark - where country-music fans, or folks who simply showed up to party at 92.5 WXTU’s free 25th anniversary show at the Susquehanna Bank Center, turned the Camden waterfront parking lots into the Wild West.

“I’m a very liberal person. I go to the Mummers Parade and Two Street. I thought it was the worst thing I ever saw in my life,” said Patricia Schaffer, of Berlin Township, Camden County, who attended the ballgame with her church group.

“Men and women were peeing through cyclone fences. while kids walked right past them. One guy put his hands over his kid’s ears.”

Riversharks General Manager Adam Lorber said the team apology was needed, adding that crowd problems and traffic headaches often arise when games coincide with large concerts.

“I had fans that were coming to the game, and there were a lot of concertgoers throwing things, shouting obscenities, and there were large-scale fights,” said Lorber, who said he received two dozen calls and e-mails from disgruntled fans.

“It hurts a lot. I would venture to say there were people at that game for the first time who won’t come back.”…

During larger concerts in Camden, nearby Cooper University Hospital often gets between 30 and 40 patients arriving from the waterfront, said Dr. Michael Chansky, chief of emergency medicine at Cooper.

“It’s mostly finding younger kids who are too drunk, sleeping on a corner or vomiting somewhere, abandoned,” Chansky said. “It’s a pretty wild scene down there, and I don’t think the Susquehanna Center or the city can handle it. They need to limit the partying, the tailgating and the public intoxication.”

Sports, music, and booze don’t mix so well in camden

As someone who’s been going to bluegrass festivals for more than a decade, and who’s seen his share of drunken rowdy campers, I can categorically say that i have NEVER seen this kind of behavior (at least not to this extent) at a bluegrass festival. I’ve seen men in prom dresses, people asleep in outhouses, people who’ve gone days (if not weeks) with neither sleep nor shower, people drunk out of their minds, but I have NEVER seen a melee like the one described above.

I don’t know why music fans in Philadelphia and New Jersey act like animals, but it’s embarrassing. Maybe it’s because the venues they go to treat them that way: lord knows the last time i was at the then-Tweeter Center, the men’s room was a disgrace, the floors covered in piss, the rank smell of shit everywhere. yeah, i realize it’s lavatory, but you could get a staph infection just by looking at it. Meanwhile, the price of beer and food is so steep, it’d cause anyone short of Donald Trump to get a case of the grumbles.

But still, there’s no excuse for acting like a stupid asshole. There’s no need to whip your dick or pussy out in front of kids and spray your urine everywhere: you’re a human being, not a labrador, so act like it.

Slinkerwink gets a front pager at Firedoglake:

We need to find out these 40 progressive Democrats in the House, and make them the power players in asking them to vote against any bill that comes out of the Senate, which would be Max Baucus’s precious little Finance Bill, that doesn’t include a strong public option. It’s what the Public Option Tool is all about, and Jane Hamsher’s right in her post at FireDogLake about what it means. The truth is that we can’t wait to fix a crappy bill in the conference committee.

There are too many unknowns in play, and I can’t go along with the optimistic take by Ezra Klein about the conference committee being where magically any subpar bill from the Senate can be magically fixed in the conference committee. We can’t afford for the Tri-Caucus health reform package to be weakened any further, or to have the public option stripped out in conference committee. It’d be a mandated bailout of the private insurance industry, and no amount of flowery rhetoric about cost controls and lowered premiums can change that fact.

It’s why I want you to use the Public Option Tool next week to call your progressive Members of Congress and find out where they stand. The public option is the line in the sand for me, and it needs to be the line in the sand for 40 progressive Democrats as well!

Also, want to bring some serious local grassroots smackdown on Senators like Baucus, Wyden, Conrad, Lincoln , Landrieu, Hagan, and Feinstein? Let me tell you how we can do this. We’re going to use President Obama’s website, Organizing For America, to accomplish the greatest smackdown of all time this weekend. …

Here’s the list of states that we should call that presently have Senators that are threatening to block President Obama’s health reform, which includes a strong competitive public option to keep insurers honest. So, when you use the “Contact People Near You” phonebanking tool on OFA and use the generic talking points which I provided, I want you to choose one of these states to call and to have the phone number of the Senator ready on hand to give to the local person you’re talking to when you ask that person to call his or her Senator to support the public option in President Obama’s health reform bill.

California–Senator Dianne Feinstein (202) 224-3841
Louisiana–Senator Mary Landrieu (202) 224-5824
Montana–Senator Max Baucus (202) 224-2651
Nebraska–Senator Ben Nelson (202) 224-6551
North Carolina–Senator Kay Hagan (202) 224-6342
North Dakota–Senator Kent Conrad (202) 224-2043
Oregon–Senator Ron Wyden (202) 224-5244

Go read the rest.

Why is this important? because a bunch of crybaby senators and congresscritters have forgotten who they represent, and they’re throwing a tantrum that progressives are holding them to their promises:

When they complain about our efforts, you know our efforts are working because they’re getting attention in the local districts of these elected officials. And elected officials HATE nothing more than local attention on what they’re NOT doing for their constituents in Congress, and the amount of money they’re taking in to obstruct REAL health reform!

Here’s some more of that whining from these politicians to go with your cheese on toast this morning:

One Democratic strategist who is working full-time on health reform was apoplectic over what he called wasted time, energy and resources by the organizations. The strategist, who asked for anonymity because he was criticizing colleagues, said: “These are friends of ours. I would much rather see a quiet call placed by [Obama chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel saying this isn’t helpful. Instead, we try to decimate them?”

….. Wyden is sanguine about ads in his home state intended to pressure him to embrace a liberal bill.

“I get an election certificate from the people of Oregon,” said Wyden, whose bipartisan health bill picked up its 14th co-sponsor last week. “As far as these ads are concerned, I pay them no attention.”

Trust me, Wyden’s paying attention. And he’ll pay even more attention when we lay down the grassroots smackdown on politicians like him, Snowe, Baucus, Conrad, Landrieu, Hagan, and others who refuse to support what a bipartisan majority of Americans support–a strong public option to keep private insurers honest and make health coverage affordable.

These Senators need to know that their electoral chances rest upon passing REAL health reform with a strong public option, and that we have a very long memory as progressives when it comes to re-election and they swoop back here on Dailykos, ask us to act as ATMs for them, and go campaigning for them. They just might not get that from us at all.

Why does this matter? Because even John Tierney’s right-wing Inquirer recognizes that Universal health care could boost economy:

Imagine living in a society where reliable police and fire protection were available only to those who worked for the largest employers. In this fictional country, people with enough money might be able to buy personal protection - but perhaps not if they’d suffered a burglary five years ago, or once called 911 for a kitchen fire.

Would people with good ideas and a little bit of money be willing to give up personal security for the chance to start their own businesses? Or would they cling to the safety promised by a job at a big company or institution?

Substitute health insurance for police and fire protection, and you have one of the best - and least-heralded - arguments for universal health care, according to a small but growing number of economists….

some say those pushing for universal access to coverage, including the Obama administration, are overlooking an argument with potentially strong bipartisan appeal.

“I think the administration makes a mistake by not making this argument, because I think it would dramatically enhance their appeal to the entrepreneurial and small-business community,” Litan said. “Every small-business owner knows about this problem.”…

Concern that employer-based health care discourages entrepreneurial risk has been around at least since the 1990s, when U.S. politicians last considered revamping the health insurance system. But hard evidence has been limited and conflicting.

One 1996 study, cowritten by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, later a top economic adviser to President George W. Bush and presidential candidate John McCain, found no statistically significant evidence that the employer-based system was impeding entrepreneurship.

At least two more recent studies have reached different conclusions. One as-yet-unpublished study, cowritten by Rand Corp. economist Susan Gates, calls the phenomenon “entrepreneurship lock.”

Gates said in an interview that solving entrepreneurship lock could spur the U.S. economy enough to at least partly pay for the costs of subsidizing universal coverage. But she said it was impossible to predict the overall effect, in part because it was unclear whether the additional entrepreneurs would be better or worse than those already willing to take such leaps.

Gates said today’s system might be discouraging the people best-suited to running businesses - prudent, thoughtful risk-takers - in favor of those convinced “they’re never going to get sick and have to worry about their health.”

Again, go read the rest.

Again, why does this matter? Well, earlier this month, Philadelphia’s reliable progressive anti-war representative, Chaka Fattah, voted not only to continue funding the war in Afghanistan with a George-Bush-style supplemental, he also voted to to give a hundrend billion dollar loan to the IMF to bail out European banks (after signing a letter complaining about the same) (go read the rest, it’ll make my editor happy!). After a flip-flop like that, and with no language on his website one way or the other about single payer health care, who’s ready to just trust him (or anyone in Congress) again?

Not this guy. Please call Congress and the Senate today and tell them your vote hinges on real health care reform, with a public option available from day one, accountable to Congress and the voters. You especially want to call Kay Hagan ((202) 224-6342 ) and Max Baucus ((202) 224-2651) in the Senate, and put the screws to Fattah ((202-225-4001) in the House as well. When you call hagan, give a Raleigh zip code; with Baucus, a Montana zip code. Use mcDonald’s restaurant locator tool to find the appropriate zip code, or they won’t pass your message along (when dealing with liars, you’re entitled to lie right back).

Don’t let the sounds of crying and wailing turn you away. Like the babies they are our representatives have been sucking at the public teat for generations, at your expense. Remember: 75% of THEIR Cadillac health care plans are paid for with YOUR tax dollars. But when it comes to using your taxes to give YOU and YOUR FAMILY something good (instead of the same-old war and destruction) it’s suddenly “too expensive”, “too far too fast”, and “too controversial”.

I call bullshit on the crybaby act, and hope you do too.