Weird/Disappointing
Conservative identification is at its highest point since (at least) 1992.

Formal Apology
I probably need a whole pad of these. Here's a blank one. Here's a list of the forms available from the Bureau of Communication. "Let that which is unsaid be said."

Reid Announcement [UPDATED]
Coming this afternoon, hopefully to tell us he's got 60 votes for a public option. Even if it's likely an opt-out program (in which individual states can vote not to participate), this is better than no government program. For a while, we may just have states that are public-insurance-eligible and some that aren't, just like we currently have gay marriage states, states with guns in bars, etc.

[UPDATE: Senate bill will have public option with opt-outs for states. Reid says he doesn't have 60 votes yet but close. This is the hard part.]

Lunkhead of the Week
Though he may not be the one to blame here (we'll see), Daniel Inouye.

The anti-rape amendment introduced by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) may be stripped from the defense appropriations bill by Appropriations chairman Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the Huffington Post reports.

Multiple sources told reporter Sam Stein that the provision -- which would prohibit the Pentagon from hiring contractors whose employment contracts prevent employees from taking work-related allegations of rape and discrimination to court -- is being targeted by defense contractors. Their lobbyists have reportedly flooded Inouye's office, worried they may lose contracts or open themselves up to lawsuits.

This is crazy. If there are legitimate concerns about the language of the amendment, let's fix them and then pass it. It's outrageous to think a woman working for a defense contractor overseas has zero recourse against a company that allows her to be brutally raped by other employees.

Mark, Are You Writing Preds Marketing Now?
After the local hockey team defeated the Ottawa Senators 6-5 in a crazy overtime game last night, this billboard spotted...

Trying Not to Get My Hopes Up
but this is somewhat promising.

Is This What a Successful Presidency Looks Like?
So, Afghan leader and George Bush BFF Hamid Karzai has agreed to a run-off election, amid indications that hundreds of thousands of his votes were fraudulent. Meanwhile, Iran has apparently reached an agreement (with US, UK, France, Russia) about processing nuclear fuel. It's hard to imagine either of those things happening under a Bush-Cheney regime.

Just sayin.

Where All the Lonely Wild People-Things Are
Saw "Where the Wild Things Are" tonight. Need to know what you think. I'm tempted to warn that it's really probably too intense for young children, but the more I think of it, it may be too intense for 40-year-olds as well, perhaps even moreso than for children, I dunno.

It's a very beautiful film, visually (and musically), and maybe even heroic in its emotional ambitions, but also a tough, sad experience in many ways.

Between that and discussing "Eleanor Rigby" and "For No One" in class today, I'm spent.

Scary
But I guess not surprising. Too many nutjobs out there these days.

48 Minutes Later
Everybody knows Reuters has been fooled by a fake press release, except for Reuters.

Lunkhead of the Week
Coming in a close second was...me, for losing my iPhone at the hockey game last night and causing trouble for everyone from my brother to the security staff at the Arena all morning tracking it down. Thanks especially to my bro, and a good Samaritan who turned it in, phone is retrieved and all is well.

But the winner of the week for outstanding achievement in lunkhead behavior?
Richard "FA" Land. See how his ridiculous apology, for saying something truly offensive and wrong, would have you believe he used the word "precisely" as "hyperbole". I don't believe that's even remotely possible by any reasonable meaning of either word. He must be one of those who uses the word "literally" to mean the opposite of literally.

It's Not Reid's Fault
...that Joe Lieberman exists.

"If Harry Reid does not have the leadership skills to get 60 votes for cloture and give a Democratic president an up-or-down vote on health care, progressives will help defeat him in 2010, even if that means Republicans take that seat," said the head of one progressive organization, who's still working out the detail of the campaign. "There is no use for Reid's vote if 60 Democratic votes means nothing on cloture, and no use for Reid's leadership if his leadership is so blatantly ineffective."

If this is all just liberal pressure, I guess..ok. But come on, why does nobody seem to remember that Joe Lieberman is one of our 60? We couldn't even get the guy to respect the Democratic primary voters in CT, or support the Democratic nominee for President! Yeah, pressure him with committee leadership and all of that I guess, but why would that work? What's Reid supposed to do?

Who Remembers Whom?
It must be weird enough playing on a high school football team with a quarterback that is the son of Joe Montana, but check this out: the backup QB? his name is Trevor Gretzky. A NYTimes piece profiles these children of star-athletes-trying-to-be-dads, asking which famous father is more recognizable and sought-after by crowds and today's high-schoolers, Joe or Wayne?

Trevor Gretzky insisted that people recognized Nick Montana’s father more often than his own at the games. “Especially my generation; no one really knows who he is,” Trevor said of his father. “People don’t notice him compared with Joe Montana.”

That was not necessarily true when the Lions played recently at Venice High School. After the game, while his mother, Janet Jones, fell into conversation with other parents on the field, a steady stream of people drifted over to his father to have photographs taken with him. As Wayne Gretzky walked toward the exit, fans continued to give chase. Between poses, he pleaded, “Janet, let’s go!”

I had to laugh though at the reference Times reporter Karen Crouse made in the piece, as if trying to outdo them both with a famous person nobody will likely remember.

Trevor was 6 in 1999 when his father wrapped up his 20-year N.H.L. career, with the Rangers. Because they cannot remember much of their fathers’ playing days, each has Rose Mary Woods-like gaps in his knowledge of his father’s career.

Rose Mary Woods? Really? A Nixon's secretary reference in a story about a high-school football team? A strange, funny thing to write there.

Oh yeah, and Nick Montana's favorite receiving target? That would be Trey Smith, Will's son. Everybody knows his dad.

Weird [UPDATED]
So, maybe you heard about the 2 Americans winning the Nobel prize in Economics? That's great news and all except that there's no such thing, according to Ezra Klein. Strange.

[UPDATE: Kevin Drum says this is stupid. He's probably right.]

Tough Weekend in Sports
Vanderbilt fumbled on the goal line in overtime, losing to Army. The Predators wasted one of the great goalie performances I've ever seen in person, when they finally let the Sabres score on their 42nd shot with 3 minutes to go to lose 1-0. The Red Sox blew a 4-run lead (and a 2-run lead in the 9th) - even one strike away from winning a couple of times - to lose yesterday 7-6 and end their season. And, to make matters worse, the Yankees won, moving on to the ALCS.

Did anything good happen?

Lunkhead of the Week
Andy McCarthy

Nobel Prize
Like President Obama, I woke up to the surprising news that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. He got an actual wake-up call. I just got the radio alarm clock version. Still, I have to say I was shocked and my immediate reaction was annoyance: this just gives Republicans the excuse to: a) badmouth these very prestigious and important global awards, something they already started once Al Gore won, and b) complain that Obama hasn't accomplished anything of substance, a charge it's hard to disagree with in many respects.

I'm warming to the idea though (screw the Republicans), helped along by the interview I heard with Elie Wiesel on the way to school.

I think it's very easy from the perspective of America to forget just what the election of Barack Obama means to the world. He represents an affirmation of hope, yes, but hope for what? Hope for lots of things, surely, but this most of all: that our common humanity can overcome the very real conflicts of our cultural differences. It sounds corny, I know. It feels corny to type. But to a world beset by violence and crisis, which saw its most prominent leading country descend into madness over the last 8 years, it must be a very real moment of hope indeed, that America - flaws and all - is not going to merely turn our backs on diplomacy, justice and the environment.

That's no small accomplishment. Whether the President did that, or just represents it, is obviously debatable. But either way, its effects would seem to be significantly felt around the world, and shouldn't be underestimated.

But there's another element to this award: an air of desperation. The world needs you, Mr. President, the committee seems to be saying. This award is for what he - and really nobody else right now - can do, what he should do, and what he must do. It's a reminder of the weight he bears, and indeed an addition to it. The entire world is moved and inspired by his election; but is also depending on him to live up to the award he now owns. That's the message I get from this decision.

Read this reaction from Shimon Peres, and tell me it doesn't re-fill you with the sense of pride and hope you had on election night.

“Very few leaders if at all were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such a profound impact,” President Shimon Peres of Israel said in a congratulatory letter to Mr. Obama. “You provided the entire humanity with fresh hope, with intellectual determination, and a feeling that there is a lord in heaven and believers on earth.”

Mr. Peres, who won the peace prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat in 1994 following the Oslo Accords, added: “Under your leadership, peace became a real and original agenda. And from Jerusalem, I am sure all the bells of engagement and understanding will ring again. You gave us a license to dream and act in a noble direction.”

Sounds Good to Me
A compromise is taking shape.

Funny/Brilliant
Grayson's got a new ad campaign. I haven't seen the movie it spoofs, but lots of people have, and I've seen enough commercials to get it.

Discussion of the Day
Beatles class today was mostly a discussion revolving around this one idea: what if for whatever reason, they stopped making music after Help! ? If their career spanned Please, Please Me - With the Beatles - Hard Day's Night - Beatles For Sale - Help! (KT you can have I Feel Fine released too) and then no more, how would their music be remembered and evaluated?

Thoughts? Opinions?

Assurances [UPDATED]
Ezra Klein says the Finance Committee will certainly vote yes for the health reform bill tomorrow, even though, of the 14 Senators we even have a chance of getting (13 Democrats plus Snowe), 6 of them have reason to vote no instead.

From what I hear, there are no real swing votes. There are senators who, for tactical or political reasons, might vote against the bill. But the people I talk to don't believe there is a single Democrat on the committee who would actually imperil the legislation's chances. Anyone whose vote is needed will vote for the bill. But if the bill is going to pass comfortably, you might see Snowe withhold her vote to strengthen her negotiating position on the floor of the Senate, or Lincoln hold back because she's worried about her political standing in Arkansas, or Wyden hold back because he's genuinely unimpressed with the legislation and infuriated at how he's been treated.

I dunno. Sounds like we may have a game of chicken among Democrats as to who most needs the freedom to vote no. Hopefully, they won't take it so far there's a train wreck. Say what you will about the Baucus bill - yeah, it's not very good. But if a bill doesn't get out of Finance, there won't be a bill. I have the most sympathy for Wyden. His ideas to unhinge insurance from employment and open the exchange (with public option) to all Americans are probably a better way to go than where we are headed.

The truth is, though, the process is simply not moving in that direction. We need him to suck it up, both in committee and on the final bill. When you've done as much as he has to develop a different, probably better, plan that is now on the scrap heap, that has to sting, but it's got to be done.

[UPDATE: Oh well....vote delayed for a week.]

Lunkhead of the Week
Robert Halderman

Seems like a pretty pathetic guy - clearly with troubles. But he gets lunkhead honors for this twist, a lesson for us all: in your execution of the plan to extort millions from a celebrity, when said celebrity arranges for you to meet with his lawyer, that should be a warning sign. Dude, if David Letterman wanted to pay you off to keep you quiet, he would have met you in a discreet location somewhere himself and not involved anyone else. Going to a lawyer's office and admitting your illegal scheme to take money from his client is a lunkhead move, if there ever was one.

Help!
...is tomorrow. Will they love "Yesterday" or hate it? I identify with both feelings...we'll see. I always get a handful of great, surprising, insightful things they hear in the lyrics and in the music that I never heard before myself or thought of anyway. Really makes me look forward to these days. Wish we didn't have to go so fast through it.

My New Hero
Rep. Grayson from Florida, whose exploits today you should follow from here, to here, to here.

Damn You, Ken Burns
Sucked in to National Parks: America's Best Idea. Struck by the same old debate. Business says the establishment of national parks will be devastating, kill all the jobs, and destroy the economy. Funny, I don't remember the logging industry ceasing to exist once park lands were protected.

But they put up fight after fight, insisting that putting limits on their tree-cutting would be the end of economic development as we know it. Loggers ravaged 60 acres a day in the Smokey Mountains in a race against the people of Tennessee and Kentucky, who were tasked with raising $10 million to purchase the land, which they did, Burns insisted, dollar by dollar, in mostly small donations.

Early Entries
Candidates are lining up for Lunkhead of the Week honors, right behind the 13 Senators mentioned in the post below.
Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C.

A Congressman, a Crank, and a Corporation. Some contest.

Not that I'm running a democracy here, but feel free to vote your preference, or nominate others, in comments.

13-10
The Senate Finance Committee had a perfectly good chance today to add a pretty modest public option to its health reform bill. Baucus (MT), Lincoln (NE), and Conrad (ND) though joined the 10 Republicans to kill the Schumer amendment. We knew Conrad was against because of his co-op preference. If there's good news, it's that we find out Bingaman (NM) and Carper (DE) and Nelson (FL) are ok, at least on this very scaled back public option.

I'm Hopeful
Read this first, then watch the trailer:

Beatles for Sale
...is the topic for tomorrow by the way, if u want to keep up. Favorite song there?

RIP Lucy (in the sky)
Link

The death of Lucy Vodden at age 46 has been announced by St. Thomas' Hospital in London, where she was treated.

The hospital said Monday she died after battling the disease (Lupus) for years.

Vodden came to the attention of John Lennon when the Beatles' young son Julian came home from school one day with a drawing that he said was "Lucy in the sky with diamonds."

Framing
Instead of just asking "why" over and over again, soliciting the same non-responsive answer, how about trying a different approach. This is not the hardest question to ask, I don't think. Here's my stab at it:

Ms. Whitman, there are a few qualities that might lead a person to make the mistake of not voting, like apathy, forgetfulness, elitism and laziness. Which one of those would you say describes the reason why you didn't?

Then the followups kind of ask themselves.

Lunkheads of the Week
Human beings. The United Nations Environment Program's latest report is not good news. (my emph. for those of you that like your bad news really bad.)

Robert Corell, who chairs the Climate Action Initiative and reviewed the UNEP report's scientific findings, said the significant global temperature rise is likely to occur even if industrialized and developed countries enact every climate policy they have proposed at this point. The increase is nearly double what scientists and world policymakers have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change.
...
The group took the upper-range targets of nearly 200 nations' climate policies -- including U.S. cuts that would reduce domestic emissions 73 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, along with the European Union's pledge to reduce its emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 --and found that even under that optimistic scenario, the average global temperature is likely to warm by 6.3 degrees.
...
Other findings include the fact that sea level might rise by as much as six feet by 2100 instead of 1.5 feet, as the IPCC had projected, and the Arctic may experience a sea-ice summer by 2030, rather than by the end of the century.

Sorry, But
Why do census workers need to be warned to "be careful"?

Clarifying...why is the state of our country such that it's dangerous to be a census worker, of all things?

Even a pizza delivery guy presumably has cash and, I guess, pizza. Why would anyone want to kill a census worker?

The Challenge
In his speech to the UN today, President Obama tackled, among many other things, the issue of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

I am not naïve. I know this will be difficult. But all of us must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we only lend it lip-service. To break the old patterns - to break the cycle of insecurity and despair - all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private. The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians. And nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks over a constructive willingness to recognize Israel's legitimacy, and its right to exist in peace and security.

We must remember that the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It is paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the night. It is paid by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own. These are God's children. And after all of the politics and all of the posturing, this is about the right of every human being to live with dignity and security. That is a lesson embedded in the three great faiths that call one small slice of Earth the Holy Land. And that is why - even though there will be setbacks, and false starts, and tough days - I will not waiver in my pursuit of peace.

Oh Noes!!
If porn turns you gay, I guess most of us all of us are destined for same-sex love!? How will the human race continue considering the Internets are teeming with porn?

Also, what if - er, hypothetically speaking - you've just been into, you know, soft core? Maybe you could still come out of it bi?

Thanks Deb!
Funny

Lunkhead of the Week
Profiled at the other blog, in which I try my best to teach Scalia a thing or 2. In case you were wondering what's up over there.

Krugman Asks
Link

How bad does a bill have to be to make it too bad to vote for?

Just a thought: can we not put some pressure on Senator Snowe, instead of letting her, apparently, rule the world? How much good is she willing to vote against, just because her caucus (which already hates her and would kick her out if they could) doesn't like the public option? She's not getting her way on everything, so she is willing to abandon health reforms she believes in?

Wow
Cross-dressing British comedian Eddie Izzard (very funny, saw him in concert a couple years ago) was not an athlete...until, that is, he completed 6 weeks of training and then ran a marathon.

43 times.

in 52 days.

That's 1,100 miles for charity. Truly insane.

Mental Health Break
A Red Sox winning streak has them pulling away from the Rangers for the wild card spot - nice pitching by Dice-K last night helped them to a 5 1/2 game lead. With a series in New York still to go, that's a nice cushion. Post-season, here we come.

Meanwhile, just in case, hockey season is on the way. The first pre-season game for the home team is tomorrow. Go Preds! (Get Phil Kessel!)

A Facebook Update
Sorry to hijack this blog (especially since I don't seem to bother updating my own much these days), but since we've talked about the plusses and minuses of Facebook here before, I just wanted to let everybody know that I've been de-friended by some right-wing person I apparently went to high school with but have no idea who he is. I don't really mind, since I'd already hidden his posts anyway.

See, Mark? Sometimes Facebook can lead to a happy ending.

Deep Thought Analogy of the Day
Joe Wilson:Obama :: Iraqi Shoe-Thrower:Bush :: Kanye West:Taylor Swift :: Serena Williams:Line Judge

Lunkhead of the Week
There's a clear choice this week, obviously, but I'm going to go elsewhere, because while Congressman Joe Wilson is nutty to the core, Minnesota Governor - and presidential aspirant - Tim Pawlenty knows better. He's just desperately appealing to The Crazy so they'll like him.

Out of Bounds
Many are comparing Joe Wilson's outburst with the typical harassment British Members of Parliament use all the time. Actually, not so much. Even there, calling someone a liar is unacceptable.

Most Important Thing...
...the President said last night was that he was so committed to making health reform deficit neutral that he wanted a provision mandating further budget cuts if the savings they expect don't materialize. Shouldn't that help reassure those budget hawks who believe the deficit-neutral promise can't possibly be kept?

I'm In For $25
Hopefully the candidate I just supported isn't some loon, or worse. But it feels good to take *some* action in defense of congressional manners. Seeing the numbers raised it looks like I'm not alone.

Sounds About Right
Barney Frank tonight on the current state of Republican opposition: "A blend of cynicism and stupidity."

I thought the speech was fabulous and moving, a moment sullied only by the jerk of a Republican congressman who heckled the President. It's too late now, but I started writing a post earlier today saying I half expected some townhall-style lunacy to enter the event, either from the gallery or from some idiot Representative (who, let's face it, had probably had a few drinks). But it seemed so unlikely, I ditched it. Never underestimate the GOP I guess.

What did you think?

Tonight - What Do You Want to Hear?
Honestly, I don't care much what Obama says about the public option. There are so many moving parts in the details, it's hard to keep track of all the consequences just from watching the news. Depending on how it's structured, a public plan may be great or may be so-so. I'm all for it, but don't anticipate him saying anything different from what he's been saying: he's for it, thinks it's the best way to control costs, but doesn't think it's the be-all of reform.

No, as much as the process needs the President to pass down details, that's not what I'm looking for in his speech. What I want him to do is light a fire under Congress to recognize that the current system has destroyed too many lives, threatens to devour our entire economy, and will only get worse on both counts unless and until they act.

If they can't handle the task of grappling with reform and coming together on the best bill they can pass, they are basically worthless as legislators and representatives. I want to hear him shame and berate them into action. Especially the Democrats. The bill will not be perfect. It may even cause as many problems as it solves initially. But maybe those won't take us 50 years to fix like the ones we have now.

They should already be ashamed that the President has to call a special joint session just to tell them to do their jobs. I know building consensus isn't easy, but we're close, we have majorities in both houses, and there's no reason why it can't be done now. If Republicans make us beat a filibuster, then figure out how to use reconciliation and browbeat them for the next 14 months for being such obstructionists. If we lose in 2010, we lose. Let's go down doing something, instead of going down doing nothing.

How about you? What are you looking for?

Liberals Debate Public Option
Robert Reich argues that a public plan is needed to give taxpayers a big enough pool of participants for leverage in negotiating rates with health providers. Ezra Klein makes the case that the public option isn't all that. For one thing, not as many people as you may think will even be eligible to buy in (an under-reported feature/bug of the legislation), so the pool won't be all that large. Krugman counters.

Trigger
What's so bad about attaching a trigger to the "public option"? It sounds to me like a reasonable way around the vote logjam in the Senate, especially if it can overcome a filibuster and avoid the hassle of reconciliation. But a trigger also could actually be a good idea, leading to stronger reform than a public option might be without one. Read Nate.

Talkin' Baseball
I love the Red Sox and follow them pretty closely. And if I care about rooting for actual success every now and then, it's a good thing too. The 4 American League teams that will likely make the playoffs this season are, unsurprisingly, the top 4 payrolls in that league, with the #1 salaried Yankees nearly 70% higher than #2 Boston. (In the more even-handed NL, the #3,5,9 and 10 ranked salaries look to make the post-season this year). For fans, then, it's pick sides between the same few well-heeled teams that make it almost every year, or hope that you're cheering on an above-average-payroll team that can sneak in every once in a while. For those in the bottom third or so, barring something very strange (Tampa last year) you have little chance. So it is that my Pirates set the record this year for most consecutive losing seasons, with a payroll only 1/4 that of the Evil Empire Yankees.

Until there is a meaningful salary cap like they have in the NBA, NFL and NHL - where there are still inequities, only less so - teams like the Pirates will for all practical purpose have no chance whatsoever, unless purchased by a tycoon with millions to burn. What kind of a game is that?

Remember When...
...Dan Quayle visited the impressionable school children of America and spread his political ideology of poor spelling?

Lunkheads of the Week
Independents. They are now apparently leaving Obama and the Democrats in droves in latest polls. Somewhere in America are perhaps millions of screwed-up voters who once upon a time pulled the lever for Democrats in Congress but Republicans for President, then supported Bill Clinton in 92 cause George raised taxes, then got caught up in Newt Gingrich's Contract and voted in Republicans in 94, backed Perot in 96, but went for Dems in 98 because they were pissed about impeachment, then went for W in 2000 because Al Gore sighed and talked funny, then would have gone against W in 2004 but had to vote for him because Kerry betrayed his country in Vietnam, then voted Democrats in control in 2006 because of Iraq, and supported Obama in 2008 because they thought he would do something about health care and fix the Bush economy, and now are going to vote Republican in 2010 because Obama is trying to do something about health care and hasn't fixed the economy yet, after he's had 8 whole months to undo Bush's 8 years of damage.

These people truly confound me.

Late Night Health Care Deep Thought
If "being an asshole" could be categorized a pre-existing condition that jeopardizes one's health coverage, anti-reformers would change their minds quickly.

The Most Important Video Game Ever?
Here's Seth Schiesel reviewing The Beatles: Rock Band in this weekend's New York Times:

The Beatles: Rock Band is nothing less than a cultural watershed, one that may prove only slightly less influential than the band’s famous appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964. By reinterpreting an essential symbol of one generation in the medium and technology of another, The Beatles: Rock Band provides a transformative entertainment experience.

In that sense it may be the most important video game yet made.
...
With all due respect to Wii Sports, no video game has ever brought more parents together with their teenage and adult children than The Beatles: Rock Band likely will in the months and years to come.
...
Previous music games have been about collections of songs. The Beatles: Rock Band is about representing and reoffering an entire worldview encapsulated in music.

An entire worldview?

My Naivety on Display re Health Reform
There are only so many Democratic Senators and Representatives. Surely they talk. Doesn't somebody in the leadership already know where everyone's breaking points and bottom lines are? Contingency A if we have a replacement for Kennedy, and Contingency B if we don't. Other than that variable, shouldn't the endgame already be basically known? Are there 60 votes for a plan with a public option or aren't there? Are there 50 for the kind of public option required in a reconciliation package or not? If the answer to both questions is NO, then what is the next best plan that would get 60, or 50 in reconciliation? Don't we know the answers to these questions? Why all the suspense?

Summer Homework
Is it too much? Here's a NYTimes panel on the question of summer work and homework, generally for children. Whose view is closest to yours?

Know What This Is?


Answer here. Pretty cool.

Remember When TARP Was Sold as an Investment?
And not just a bunch of money we simply threw out the window to save the financial system? Well, it turns out we are actually making a profit on some of it. The $700 billion original cost is shrinking as banks pay back the US Treasury - and then some. By the time the whole thing plays out, we may even break even on the deal (with the added bonus of perhaps avoiding the complete meltdown of the economy in a global depression).

Lunkhead of the Week
Steven Anderson. Some weeks, it's an easy call.

Deep Thought
Given the state of things, politically - with liberals frustrated and confused about his health care strategy, independents predictably weak-kneed when it comes to actually doing something, and Republicans just frothing-at-the-mouth, batshit insane, it's pretty impressive really that Obama's approval ratings are as high as 50%.

Pearlstein
Argues for compromise. Would you take this deal?

More Ted
Kenny B wants to know why this isn't playing on newscasts across the country re health care.

What is the Price?
In case your eyes have been dry all day, here's Ted on the minimum wage 2 years ago.

The Lion of the Senate
Rest in Peace, Ted Kennedy. Read the President's statement here.

Health Reform Updates
Some recommended links:
Jon Gabel of the National Opinion Research Center writes an op-ed in the NYTimes questioning the ability of the CBO to accurately predict savings in reform:

As health care reform makes its way through Congress, the budget office’s assessment of how much various elements might cost may determine the details of legislation, and whether it ultimately passes. But when it comes to forecasting the costs of reform, the budget office’s record is suspect. In each of the past three decades, when assessing major changes in Medicare, it has substantially underestimated the savings the changes would bring.

At TPM, Josh posts the concerns of a doctor has an idea why fellow professionals aren't more engaged in the reform effort:

Remember our daily lives: every insurance company requires that we are certified with them, every company has a different form to use, every company says no to our initial request. Hospitals rarely collect more than 40 cents on the dollar billed. THEY DRIVE US CRAZY. So, why not enlist us in the cause?

There are many examples of low-hanging fruit: a universal billing form, available for electronic submission to cut down on paper work and administration costs; a penalty for a claim incorrectly rejected...He needs to show us why reform will improve our working lives as well as our patients lives. If he did that, there would be no louder advocates.

Steven Pearlstein rips Michael Steele.

David Leonhardt explains the benefits of an approach like Wyden-Bennett, which Nashville Congressman *sigh* Jim Cooper supports, but hardly anyone else.

In the simplest version, families would receive a voucher worth as much as their employer spends on their health insurance. They would then buy an insurance plan on an “exchange” where insurers would compete for their business. The government would regulate this exchange. Insurers would be required to offer basic benefits, and insurers that attracted a sicker group of patients would be subsidized by those that attracted a healthier group.

The immediate advantage would be that people could choose a plan that fit their own preferences, rather than having to accept a plan chosen by human resources....

The longer-term advantage would be that health insurance would become fully subject to the brutal and wonderful forces of the market. Insurers that offered better plans — plans that drew on places like the Mayo Clinic to offer good, lower-cost care — would win more customers.

Don't Try This at Home
Thanks to Mark for sending.

God Help Us
Wasn't Timothy McVeigh a right-wing terrorist? Also, just a year ago weren't we at war with terror? I guess it's ok if you're a Republican.

In Which I Sort of Agree with Douthat
It doesn't feel great to, but I basically agree with his column this morning, which ends this way:

If the Congressional Democrats can’t get a health care package through, it won’t prove that President Obama is a sellout or an incompetent. It will prove that Congress’s liberal leaders are lousy tacticians, and that its centrist deal-makers are deal-makers first, poll watchers second and loyal Democrats a distant third. And it will prove that the Democratic Party is institutionally incapable of delivering on its most significant promises.

You have to assume that on some level Congress understands this — which is why you also have to assume that some kind of legislation will eventually pass.

If it doesn’t, President Obama will have been defeated. But it’s the party, not the president, that will have failed.

Lunkheads of the Week
Michelle Bachmann and Jim Demint pull off a rare feat not credibly attempted by elected officials since the 1960s. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Full Crazy. Josh has more at TPM.

Capitalism: A Love Story
Honestly, the trailer doesn't look great to me, but Michael Moore's new movie will surely be fun to watch. He says "I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make." Out in October.

New Highs
New all-time highs are good news when it's the life expectancy of Americans, but bad news when it's ocean temperatures.

"It's Important That You Don't Only Use Marshmallows"
That was my favorite sentence from this researcher, explaining the findings and lessons from the Marshmallow Game (which I looked up thanks to a weekend conversation with Stevie T), a test done of children ages 4 and 5 that turns out to be strongly predictive of academic success and higher psychological functioning. Apparently, it features prominently in a newish book called "The Time Paradox".

Looking for Silver Lining
Even without a public option, health reform would - so far as I can tell - still include the following:

1. Individual mandate would require Americans to be insured, even young healthy people who think they don't need it.

2. New regulations would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to the sick, and from dropping people just for changing jobs or losing their job. Regulations would prohibit caps on coverage.

3. A health care exchange would operate as an entry point for those not covered through their employment - it would list a menu of private health coverage options from insurance providers, offering citizens the same options that federal employees have.

4. Government subsidies - calibrated to an average of the 3 lowest prices in the exchange - would help low-income and lowish-income Americans pay for health insurance. With the mandates and the subsidy, near-universal coverage would be achieved.

5. Companies (of a certain size) that refuse to offer medical coverage to their employees would be required to pay into the subsidy pool.

6. Small businesses would receive tax incentives for covering employees.

There are surely others, but those are the ones I've heard the most, and none of them depend on a public option added to the exchange (do they?). The public option would help keep coverage costs down, and keep insurance companies honest in other ways, and those things alone make it a badly needed element of reform, but does it really render the other accomplishments "not real reform" as so many (including Howard Dean, God love him) are saying? Are we over-reacting on the left? Am I just pissed about losing yet another political fight to Republicans and other government-haters and fear-mongerers? Or is this really worth a line in the sand? These are honest questions and I am educable here, so help me out.

I tend to believe reports that the White House was completely surprised by the public option becoming the lynch-pin of reform, and that President Obama really sees it as only one small piece of the broader reform effort - not one of the principles but only one of his preferences for achieving them. Tell me how my glass half-full thought here is off base - as I'm sure it is. Are we right policy-wise to make the public option the defining piece of real reform? Politically, are we right to do it, given that surely this is the frame most comfortable to Republicans?

Ruts Are Real
Apparently, stress brings on changes in the brain that compel us to seek routines and habits, even the ones that bring on stress in the first place.

...researchers have discovered that the sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence.
...
“Behaviors become habitual faster in stressed animals than in the controls, and worse, the stressed animals can’t shift back to goal-directed behaviors when that would be the better approach,” Dr. [Nuna] Sousa said....

Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist who studies stress at Stanford University School of Medicine, said, “This is a great model for understanding why we end up in a rut, and then dig ourselves deeper and deeper into that rut.”

There's a little bit of hope though. With the removal of the stressors, the effects on the brain are reversible. Good luck with that.

Damn You, Facebook!!
The girl I had a huge crush on in 12th Grade is a "fan" of Sarah Palin. Did I need to know that?

Dr. Dean in the House
I don't buy conspiracy theories that somehow Democrats and Obama have everyone right where they want them on health reform. (Not a member of an organized political party....)

Maybe strong reform is still salvageable, but seems like what's going on is just what it looks like: some bungling, some lowering the bar, and negotiating from weakness (for some reason). Hopefully a bill will still be standing at the end with some measure of reform still in it.

I tend to agree with Howard Fineman, who I just heard say that approaching universality of coverage was always the part Obama cared about, not publicly run competition, which has somehow become the litmus test. But for those of you that want to believe, Howard Dean says don't worry. It's all going to work out just fine, public option intact.

Insanity [UPDATED]
Will this phenomenon simply continue to escalate until finally something horrible happens? Hopefully I am underestimating the sanity of politically-charged gun owners.

[UPDATE: At TPM, Josh makes good sense on this issue, concluding: "...put me down as not believing we should allow the brandishing of firearms in proximity of the president as an acceptable way of expressing opposition to the president. Shouldn't this be obvious?"

But the next logical point has to be heard as well. The reason the White House will *never let the Secret Service* establish policies targeting that kind of behavior is a political one: Obama will not want to be seen as fulfilling the prophecy of the irrational right that said he will take away their guns. If one nutjob legally carrying a gun in a protest zone is detained or forcibly disarmed, firearms will be everywhere and we won't hear the end of it.

The good news is that this problem - political as it is - has a very reasonable and easy political solution: some Republican who is respected by gun nuts needs to be the one to come out against this kind of display and demand the Secret Service take additional protective measures by expanding the no-gun perimeter in public gathering places around the President at events. The bad news is, yeah I can't think of who would do it, either. But the fact that nobody on the other side is raising this issue as a matter of essential security - protecting our President, for goodness sake! - is a pretty good indicator of the current Republican commitment to disunity.

Say what you will about even the Clinton years. I don't remember armed protestors showing up with impunity. When did this become ok?]

Lunkhead of the Week
I've had my eye on the Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, for potentially award-winning lunkhead excellence, until I saw the letter sent out by Representative Paul Broun (Crazy-GA), warning of the President's health reform plan.

Obama and his advisors are modeling this rationing board after European systems that use age and life-expectancy as key factors in deciding the "cost efficiency" of a procedure.

In other words: When mama falls and breaks her hip, she'll just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient.

Broun wins. Can you believe it's come to nonsense like this? As low as my opinion of Republicans had already sunk, I have to say they've surprised even me in this debate.

Movie Notes
Believe it or not, I really liked the new movie Julie and Julia. I was pretty surprised myself. It's funny and sweet and understated in some truly nice moments. Kind of fluffy but without being too sappy or childish. Yeah a dumb moment here and there, but didn't detract from the overall fun of it. And, as much as I went to watch Streep's performance, I honestly forgot it was her after a while. It seems stupidly obvious to even say, but she really is pretty good. Lots of it is her voice here, but plenty of subtle physical things going on as well (not that I'm some acting expert).

I followed that up with Adoration last night. Not sure I could have picked a more completely different film. Atom Egoyan's movies are always a fascinating, gradual uncovering of truth, and Adoration is no different. This one is HEAVY though, all the way through. And some of the real head-scratching decisions you witness early on don't really hold up under the weight, even if they are to some degree explained by the time you get to the end. As much as I wanted to like it - and definitely was moved and surprised in a few very poignnant moments, the whole thing just comes off as too contrived to hold together.

Lastly, it's not out yet, but District 9 is getting great reviews, which I of course have not read because I don't like to do that sort of thing. Still, you can tell from the headlines they're very positive.

Ouch
A nasty takedown of Rick Santorum after news that the Republican former PA Senator is considering a 2012 run for President. Here's the thing: this slap was authored by prominent GOP strategist Mark McKinnon.

I’m a pretty tolerant guy, but beyond his ideology, some of Santorum’s behavior is just a little bizarre. For example, Santorum has six children. In 1996, he had son born prematurely who lived for only two hours. He and wife brought the child home and introduced the dead infant to the rest of their children as “your brother Gabriel” and slept with the body overnight.

Preemptive strike? We can only hope this is the tone of a long contentious struggle for the Republican nomination. Who's the biggest nutjob without being too unpalatable? Bring on the crazy!

Sleep Deprived
It's no secret anymore that sleep patterns are strongly tied to overall health and well-being - including childhood development. Our brains and bodies do lots of important stuff during that time, and can't do important stuff well during waking time if it hasn't had enough. It's also no secret that some people just need less than other people. But there are also those (I plead guilty) who, when confronted by this health requirement, like to offer the I-need-less-than-others excuse even though I don't really know if it's true, whether less sleep is really affecting my health and performance or not.

All of that to preface the discovery of a gene that really does allow some to thrive perfectly well on only 6 hours per night. Before you claim "Aha! I am one of those people!", you should know that no, you are not, and neither am I. At least, chances are very, very good that we aren't.

The gene is vanishingly rare in humans, occurring in less than 3% of people.

So almost everyone who claims they only need six hours' sleep is kidding themselves. And the consequences of chronic sleep deprivation are serious, says Clete Kushida, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and director of Stanford University's Sleep Medicine Center. Sleep deprivation has been linked to an increase in motor vehicle accidents, deficiencies in short-term memory, focus and attention as well as depressed mood and a decrease in the ability to control appetite.
...
Ying-Hui Fu, a professor of neurology at UCSF...cautions that most people who habitually get less than eight hours sleep a night are only building up a large, dangerous, sleep debt.

For-It-Before-He-Was-Against-It Award
Newt Gingrich, who used to be a big booster of end-of-life counseling programs, but is now just a big tool, playing to the crazies.

Meanwhile, one of the weirder stories I read this week touted the possibility of Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) as a potential presidential candidate, because Republicans are "in need of an 'adult' who can speak for the party without embarrassing it". Grassley himself demonstrates the argument today that while they may need it, he is not that man.

Euthanasia and the Conversations of Ethics Nerds
If you wonder where all the talk of euthanasia and "death panels" came from, a good piece in Salon ties it all together. The bogeyman - in case you hadn't heard - is Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the best known medical ethicists in the country, who just happens (the conspiracy theorists note) to be the brother of Rahm, the President's Chief of Staff.

If you've ever taken an Ethics 101 class, or engaged in any of that kind of discussion, you know that there's a certain kind of intractable intellectual problem that drives the uncovering of ethical philosophy. If you or I were to just happen to overhear one of these conversations about, say, how do we decide who to throw off the boat if one of us had to die so that all of us could live? we might be a bit appalled if we didn't know the context, that it was a hypothetical for the purpose of an academic discussion of principles.

That is essentially what happened to Dr. Emanuel, who, despite becoming the "death panel" poster boy for Palin et al, is as it turns out a staunch opponent of legal euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Read all about it.

Obama Town Hall
Must have had a no-crazies-allowed sign out front. There were some questions of dissent, but without the frothing at the mouth and ridiculous lies it's actually a decent conversation - a few legitimate disagreements laid out, and myths dispelled. Watch a replay if you get a chance. Or read it here, if you're into that.

Wishful Thinking
What if newspapers and news stations reported on what is actually in the various health insurance reform bills moving through Congress, instead of just reporting on what celebrity politicians, pundits and various crazy people believe, or want us to believe is in the bill - followed of course by "reporting" on the way the other side reacts to this "news".

Has anyone seen any actual in-depth coverage of the content of proposed health reform legislation? Beyond "public option" and "no more pre-existing conditions", it's pretty tough to piece any real specifics together. You would think, in a normal world, that would be a perfect job for, you know, journalists.

Steven Hawking is British
Investor's Business Daily apparently has the dumbest editorial board in the world. Maybe some reporter could ask Hawking if he would prefer to have America's health care system to the U.K.'s NHS.

Strenuous Exercise May Not Help You Lose Weight
Time Magazine Cover Story:

The basic problem is that while it's true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.
...
After we exercise, we often crave sugary calories like those in muffins or in "sports" drinks like Gatorade. A standard 20-oz. bottle of Gatorade contains 130 calories. If you're hot and thirsty after a 20-minute run in summer heat, it's easy to guzzle that bottle in 20 seconds, in which case the caloric expenditure and the caloric intake are probably a wash. From a weight-loss perspective, you would have been better off sitting on the sofa knitting.
...
Many obesity researchers now believe that very frequent, low-level physical activity — the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented — may actually work better for us than the occasional bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat. "You cannot sit still all day long and then have 30 minutes of exercise without producing stress on the muscles," says Hans-Rudolf Berthoud, a neurobiologist at LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center who has studied nutrition for 20 years. "The muscles will ache, and you may not want to move after. But to burn calories, the muscle movements don't have to be extreme. It would be better to distribute the movements throughout the day."

Discuss.

Enough is Enough
Will this new statement from Sarah Palin finally be enough irresponsible fear-mongering to warrant the President coming out swinging? From her recent Facebook post. Absolutely outrageous. How low can they go?

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Remember the fight over NAFTA? When Al Gore debated Ross Perot on Larry King and shredded his critiques? Can we not get someone to go toe-to-toe with Palin in a similar setting to do the same thing over health care? I'm surprised Dems have not generated a single forum to really explain the details - and stomp out the rumors - in a setting that will allow actual discussion. Can we not get an hour of time on the teevee to explain it?

Lunkhead of the Week
I could have chosen many of the usual suspects, from Rush to Lou Dobbs to Glenn Beck, for spreading fear and falsehood over the healthcare debate, calling it socialism and comparing Obama to Hitler. But you've heard of all those lunkheads. So my choice this week is the spokesman for Americans for Prosperity (via TPM), a group leading a tour of the country to rally rage against reform. Listen to the way he riles up this mostly senior crowd, scares the hell out of them with lies, and incites them into anti-government action.

Did President Bush Let Gog and Magog Dictate Foreign Policy
Here's a post I prepared for the church-state blog, but then thought better of actually hitting the publish button. Might as well put it somewhere.

You might want to go ahead and swallow whatever morning beverage you're drinking before you read this account of President Bush's efforts to rally support for the Iraq War, apparently confirmed in a new book by French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice. We can all at least hope that it's not true.

The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to [then-President Jacques Chirac], asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

Sadly, on the heels of news that Scripture and religious imagery adorned the Pentagon's Iraq War reports to the Bush White House, this very strange story can't simply be dismissed, can it? Perhaps a reporter could follow up with Mr. Chirac and Mr. Bush and determine if it's possible that recent U.S. foreign policy was indeed driven by a 5th-grade reading of Ezekiel.

[UPDATE: Nevermind, published it anyway.]

Must-Read
Stephen Pearlstein writes this in tomorrow's Washington Post:

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.

A New Approach
Maybe if Paula Abdul hadn't quit American Idol, this speech by John Brennan, formerly of the Bush Administration and now the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, might have gotten into the news. It's a long one, but worth the read.

First, and perhaps most significantly, the fight against terrorists and violent extremists has been returned to its right and proper place: no longer defining—indeed, distorting—our entire national security and foreign policy, but rather serving as a vital part of those larger policies. President Obama has made it clear that the United States will not be defined simply by what we are against, but by what we are for—the opportunity, liberties, prosperity, and common aspirations we share with the world.

Rather than looking at allies and other nations through the narrow prism of terrorism—whether they are with us or against us—the administration is now engaging other countries and peoples across a broader range of areas. Rather than treating so many of our foreign affairs programs—foreign assistance, development, democracy promotion—as simply extensions of the fight against terrorists, we will do these things—promote economic growth, good governance, transparency and accountability—because they serve our common interests and common security; not just in regions gripped by violent extremism, but around the world.
...
Indeed, it was telling that the President was actually criticized in certain quarters in this country for not using words like "terror," "terrorism" or "terrorist" in [his Cairo] speech. This goes to the heart of his new approach. Why should a great and powerful nation like the United States allow its relationship with more than a billion Muslims around the world be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilistic actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims? After all, this is precisely what Osama bin Laden intended with the Sept. 11 attacks: to use al Qaeda to foment a clash of civilizations in which the United States and Islam are seen as distinct identities that are in conflict. In his approach to the world and in his approach to safeguarding the American people, President Obama is determined not to validate al Qaeda’s twisted worldview.

Clunker Update
No link, but heard on NPR that a deal has been reached with the House. Senate will vote today to approve the House extension, with the understanding that when they come back in a month, the House will revise to take the $2 billion from new funding instead of from the stimulus bill's renewable energy loan program.

Crazies Out in Force
Democratic Rep "physically assaulted" at event. No details, so that could I guess mean most anything. Still, did anything like this happen even once during our march to war based on a lie? Taken from the Florida recount playbook, nobody expresses violent outrage like Republicans.

Caught!
I admit, I am not the legitimate author of Article 19. No sense lying anymore now that my authentic Kenyan birth certificate has been uncovered.
Make your own here.

Watching Other People Brown
I missed this, but over the weekend Michael Pollan had a feature in New York Times Magazine, his thoughts on our current relationship to cooking after watching the new Julia Child-related film starring Meryl Streep.

That learning to cook could lead an American woman to success of any kind would have seemed utterly implausible in 1949; that it is so thoroughly plausible 60 years later owes everything to Julia Child’s legacy. Julie Powell operates in a world that Julia Child helped to create, one where food is taken seriously, where chefs have been welcomed into the repertory company of American celebrity and where cooking has become a broadly appealing mise-en-scène in which success stories can plausibly be set and played out. How amazing is it that we live today in a culture that has not only something called the Food Network but now a hit show on that network called “The Next Food Network Star,” which thousands of 20- and 30-somethings compete eagerly to become? It would seem we have come a long way from Swanson TV dinners.
...
But here’s what I don’t get: How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves? For the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence — along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network star — has, paradoxically, coincided with the rise of fast food, home-meal replacements and the decline and fall of everyday home cooking.

Don't be fooled, by the way. He does get many of the reasons why we are keen to watch others cook but no so much into doing it ourselves. Much of the piece is spent delving into exactly those factors that explain perfectly well the reasons behind this loss, which he suggests may be far more damaging than even sympathetic readers would have thought. That the reasons for this cultural change may be perfectly understandable though, and the prospect of turning back essentially impossible, doesn't undo or lessen that damage.

You Be A Senator
Your "cash for clunkers" program has helped send car sales suddenly upward. Buyers are lining up for the $3500-4500 rebates, trading in gas guzzlers for more efficient vehicles (61% more efficient, according to the White House). But, they are doing it so much faster than you expected when you initially voted for the program, it's about to run out of money months ahead of schedule. You could have probably set more stringent mileage limits (currently, buyers get $3500 for improving mileage by 4-10 mpg, or $4500 for improving by more than 10) and paid out a little less tax money per rebate, and had an even better success. As it is, though, a win for the economy and a modest win for the environment, right?

So, here is your dilemma: the House has already passed an extension of $2 billion and gone on break for August. The rebate program is set to run out of money by Friday, and you're set to go on your own recess after that anyway. And oh yeah your staff just told you that the House bill secured the money for their extension by taking $2 billion from a renewable energy loan program that probably would have more environmental benefit. You're not really sure how the initial estimate - that this money would fund rebates through September - could have been so far off, and there's not enough time to figure that out before recess.

You never would have been for $3 billion in a clunkers program and $2 billion less in energy loans in the first place, but that's essentially what auto dealers across the state are ringing your phone off the hook demanding you support.

What do you do?

White House Video
I like this inside look - describing what happens to mail sent to the President.

Why Did We Wait So Long
To start calling it "health insurance reform"? Obama started last week, and I'm hearing Senators finally doing the same on my teevee today. It seems obvious and effective. Many many Americans are wary of reforming their health care, but wouldn't mind taking the scalpel to their health insurance. Couldn't they have thought of this during the transition, or the campaign?