http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/12/07/arkansas-gets-more-help-from-medicaid-expansion-than-most-blue-states Comments On: Arkansas gets more help from Medicaid expansion than most blue states by David Ramsey en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Wed, 22 May 2013 00:45:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by couldn't be better]]> Sun, 09 Dec 2012 17:14:44 -0600 Arkansas Times
Dan Froomkin finally calls out the media for fostering the kind of bullshit to which ES subscribes and posts here ad infinitum.

"Campaign coverage in 2012 was a particularly calamitous failure, almost entirely missing the single biggest story of the race: Namely, the radical right-wing, off-the-rails lurch of the Republican Party, both in terms of its agenda and its relationship to the truth."

"GOP leaders have become 'ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.'"

"'I can't recall a campaign where I've seen more lying going on -- and it wasn't symmetric,' said Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who's been tracking Congress with Mann since 1978. Democrats were hardly innocent, he said, 'but it seemed pretty clear to me that the Republican campaign was just far more over the top.'"

"'If voters are going to be able to hold accountable political figures, they've got to know what's going on,' Ornstein said. 'And if the story that you're telling repeatedly is that they're all to blame -- they're all equally to blame -- then you're really doing a disservice to voters, and not doing what journalism is supposed to do.'"

False equivalency is, from the Latin, "bullshit."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-froomkin…
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Sun, 09 Dec 2012 10:20:24 -0600 Arkansas Times
http://archive.truthout.org/031109HA

Note: Ultimately Conyers and crew were eventually allowed to attend some late meetings only after agreeing to a gag/ not to bring SP up at all.

Of course later that summer we learned before the spring "summit" the admin had already made a deal with pharma not to allow negotiation of by far the highest priced pharmaceutical prices on planet earth. But only a so-called promise from them that they would slow the rise of the highest prices drugs in the world.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/i…

These are/were the elephants in the cost and potential care for all room. Not at all approached in any way which would do anything but make the elephants worse.

To answer your question... an open mind is as absurd among neoliberal democrats as any wingnut. Neoliberals and conservatives agree opening our wallets even if it means an earlier open casket is their job one.
Posted by Eureka Springs]]> Sun, 09 Dec 2012 09:37:44 -0600 Arkansas Times
The even more interesting part of last evening was the big discussion we had with our girls over dinner and afterwards. Their JFK moment was 9-11-2001. It's kinda hard to connect those 2 points except for the fact that when I was young the Kennedy assassination stop the world cold for at least 4 long days as 9-11 stopped the world when my kids were young.

Like I remember exactly where I was when I heard JFK had been shot, they of course remember every moment after their teachers told them NY City was under attack. We shared memories of not knowing when the worst was over and how we all felt like the world was crumbling for a while. They told me about how I picked them up at school and what I said to them, something I have zero memory of. They remembered mag trying to explain what happened earlier that day and mag and I both agonized about what to say to them about something that really couldn't be explained.

I remembered the hour before my teacher came thru the classroom door with tears on her face to tell us about JFK, that was a weird feeling as Mr. Hill was telling about what he was doing during that same hour. I have no idea why, in my memory of 1963, it managed to also record eating lunch and playing on the playground, but it did.

My father came home from work early on Nov. 22, 1963, something that never happened. Ma and I were already watching our black & white TV set and he told me he wanted me to sit there and watch everything on TV because it was history in the making and I'd be glad I watched when I was older. He was of course, right.

Thru the blurr, I remember mag and the kids and I were glued to our TV sets for days in 2001. Anyway, it was an interesting night last night and all that talking was good for my family and never ever back when I was watching that old Curtis-Mathis TV set did I ever dream 49 years later I'd be sitting in Fort Baptist with a wife and 2 children watching the guy who leaped onto the back of JFK's limo as it sped toward Parkland Hospital. It is my fondest hope that we won't experience another world stopping event....2 is plenty.
Posted by DeathbyInches]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 20:06:15 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Farkleberry]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:27:32 -0600 Arkansas Times True it is that "Those in power pretend to be dumb", but can we agree that the dumb pretend to be in power?
Posted by ozarkrazo]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 18:42:37 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by ozarkrazo]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 18:36:51 -0600 Arkansas Times
All evidence suggests maintaining hope in the neoliberals is as fraught with self-loathing error as those other guys. Both prefer keeping the profit for a few sky high while insisting we all ignore the value of health care as a human right. Since the neoliberals, just like wingnuts hope you will never even notice they are all insisting we do not do the proven, obvious things. Obama himself made sure nobody invited to the earliest discussions would even bring it (single payer, etc.) up... if they might have they were not allowed a seat at the table. For gods sake, if he wont even let you talk about it then that nothing but hope killing.

You might as well get in your car and head east in hope you will see California.

Would have enjoyed attending Clint Hill with y'all.
Posted by Eureka Springs]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:06:48 -0600 Arkansas Times
The whole family attended a talk by Clint Hill last night, and it was a great teaching moment for our girls. Mr. Hill was the Secret Service agent who jumped on the back of JFK's convertible limo in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, pushing Jackie back in the car and shielding her and her instantly dead husband from more of Oswald's bullets.

As we were driving back home it struck me....how can we be such a great nation when 49 years later we still don't know who killed JFK? No wonder our nation can't figure out why it costs too damn much to go to the doctor or a hospital today. Those in power pretend to be dumb. Those in power pretend good, affordable health care for all is too complicated, though, as you point out all the rest of the industrialized nations figured out how to do it years and years ago.

I maintain hope that this mess called Obamacare will eventually lead us to universal health care. At the moment it's a super gift to private insurance companies, the real devils behind the inability to get affordable health care in the US. Still it's already delivering good things and I'm proud that our Governor signed us up since a lot of our population, probably me included, won't be around when universal health care becomes the law of the land.
Posted by DeathbyInches]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:38:29 -0600 Arkansas Times
Quit worrying about right wing so much, because the demo wing is much further right today than the Dole wing of 20 years ago.

Because demos are playing class warfare, divide and conquer as intently, in tandem with the republicans.

Establish health care as a human right. Even if it were more expensive it would be the right thing to do... but as facts overwhelmingly demonstrate all other countries in the world who begin with such a premise do it for far less money and better health stats ta boot.
Posted by Eureka Springs]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:15:22 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by couldn't be better]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 10:39:17 -0600 Arkansas Times
The WAPO is lying about AR... because at best things are uncertain, not certain as their map claims. Yet the big picture still admits over two thirds of states are not going to do it or are undecided.
meanwhile we are all asked to pretend 14k income levels per year for an individual is all who deserve help here. We are asked to ignore the much more successful and far less expensive existing template from over thirty five countries around the world who do and will remain far better than US.

And we are never reminded on blogs like this that both parties are currently doing their best to raise medicare eligibility age to 67.

The system is broken... this is not about health, care anymore than it's about affordability.

AR should not participate... we should all demand much much better.
Posted by Eureka Springs]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 10:04:39 -0600 Arkansas Times