I wonder if they're trying to kill their own party. Their numbers have got to show that opposing SCHIP is ridiculously unpopular, even among Republicans. Why are they bothering to wrap themselves so closely to a failed and unpopular president's policies when they know they'll pay such a high political price? Why hand their opponents a ready-made "Senator X hates children" commercial?
In an unrelated note, everyone keeps talking really vaguely about the coming economic collapse -- could we have a thread/discussion about that? I know nothing at all about economics (it's why I expect to be homeless and/or dead in the next three years), but I'd love to hear from people who know more on the subject.
I've been promising to write about the economics for a while.
I've even got something like 10 sites open in one of my Firefoxes. And have, for like a month.
It's not an easy thing to write about and takes time.
Probably not this week, as I'm busy this weekend, but it is on my list of stuff to get around to.
In the meantime, start laying in a supply of non-perishable supplies. Seriously. Not stuff that will go bad easily. And you'll want to rotate them in with your normal food, so make them stuff you want to eat.
If you can get six months of food storage, you'll be in good shape I think. That's what I'm working for. NOT there yet. Not even close.
My best estimate on when I think the collapse is most likely to come, is roughly six months after the 2008 Olympics, +- 3 months, on the order of. It really all depends on when China stops stoking their economic fires to look so good to the rest of the world. They simply can't keep this up much longer. Their collapse will set off everything else.
Again, I will write a full post on this at a later date. It's just, as Sara has cautioned me, promising a post I've found, instantly makes it something which just.doesn't.get.done.
*sighs*
Not quite sure why.
I've got two promised posts outstanding.
This one on the coming depression. Which of course, I could be completely wrong on, but don't think I am. And one tentatively called, On Trust, which has been promised since July. Heh.
Anyway, this thread isn't about a future economic issue. That truly was a throwaway paragraph or two. Which I stuck in because I just couldn't stop overwriting. Sorry. Kinda like right now.
Okay, stopping. Must get an hour of sleep before my alarm goes off at 5:55.
Night.
my wife an I where both laid off shortly after our first kid was born (three months or so). and expanded schip could have help greatly we could not afored to both eat, pay mortage and get corba coverage, hell we couldn't afored to do anythign if we got corba for $1200 a month but we made too much on unemployment to qualify for coverage for our kid.
we got very lucky, had a pediatrician that we knew well, he kept us covered and then mocked up a bill for our new insurance company after we started working....had we not known a doctor that was willing to basicly comit fraud, well the kid would have had to miss his checkups while we hoped he didn't get sick.
The Republican Party:
Children?
We'll fuck 'em up!
Iraqi insurgents?
Hey!
I'm busy here!
MOMMMM!
Where are my Cheetos!
Dammit, Jesse, I don't need to start the day out this depressed.
Wait, dammit, I already start my days out this depressed!
Wally:
The main thing that guarantees an economic collapse for this country is the mountain of debt under which we are buried, and this debt is massive on every level: Federal deficit, state and local deficits, the trade deficit, corporate debt, and individual consumer household debt.
What's been stinkin' up the scene in the world of high finance since June is that a lot of loans have been made in the form of high-priced mortgages so that people with no real money or assets to pay back the loans could take part in the now-deflating real-estate boom. What happened is that agencies whose job it is to rate the likelihood of these loans being repaid, were in cahoots with the big-finance people who were pushing these dubious loans, and they said that these buckets of financial pigshit were as good as gold. That gave the ability of the finance people to sell these bad loans as securities. Not only is that fucked up because these are bad loans, I also think it's fucked up because a loan, namely money yet to be repaid, is a liability until such time as it is actually repaid. So buying a "security", which is supposed to be an asset, based on a loan is buying a financial instrument that could possibly be something that eats your money rather than makes you money in the future when repayment on the loan by the person who owes the money is supposed to happen. So when the buckets of pigshit (the bad loans sold as securities) started to stink this most recent summer, it created waves of instability in the markets that necessitated the Fed lowering the interest rate to keep the finance industry and the stock market afloat, at the cost of devaluing the dollar, as this rate-cutting amounts to piling more debt on our already huge mountain of debt.
[Ronco commercial announcer] But wait! It gets even better! [/RCA] Many of these bad mortgages exist on an adjustable-rate basis, and these rates that determine the interest to be paid on the loan go up when unfavorable market conditions are occuring, and huge numbers of these rates are scheduled to be reset from now until July 2008. And with the housing bubble going bust, these rates are going to go up, up, up, which is very bad because the number of mortgage defaults taking place is already going up, up, up.
All the conservative movement has is their ideology. This is the way it's been for..well..a long time. It probably has its roots in being insanely anti-communist. But that's over and done with now. Everything isn't a half-step towards flying a red flag.
People will stop voting ideology and start voting reality. That's why they went after this kid..because it injected reality into the debate. Republican politics is fine for debate clubs and think tanks, but in the real world, it hurts people. It hurts them bad.
And yes. The American economy probably is on the verge of collapse. The unfortunate reality is that I think that an economy based around a ponzi scheme (the stock market) of sorts is doomed to failure eventually.
I was watching a clip from Moyer's show on Crooks and Liars this morning, that mentioned that the financial markets are designed to get capital from investors to entrepreneurs. And in this case, it's a good thing. But when you're buying and selling wishful value and not ACTUAL value. When you make more money off of massive amounts of inflation than actual profit for the company, you should know that something is wrong.
And that's what it is. Localized inflation because of massive demand. The economic people in power fight inflation when it comes to wages, but they ignore the inflation in the stock market. This core corruption of the system will be its downfall.
I just called my representative in Congress. Please do this even if your rep. is a solid, reliable Democrat on these issues. They need to know that the party's liberal base is paying attention and cares about these things.
Localized inflation because of massive demand.
That was certainly what was keeping the real-estate bubble going. And the reason all those bad loans were made was in order to keep that inflation going. Short-sighted short-term thinking in a major, major way.
You stay classy Grand Old Party.
I wonder if they're trying to kill their own party.
I wonder if in the back of Cheney's reptilian brain he's convinced he can save the whole decrepit mess with some sort of "Chilean" option.
Electorally they're not near close enough for the standard Rovian tactics or vote count shenanigans to matter. Fund raising has turned to mush. Combine with mass retirements and things ain't looking too good. The dead enders are bankrupt morally, ethically and philosophically.
~, I think Cheney would have already gone with the Full Metal Pinochet option [h/t Driftglass], if he thought it could work. I suspect Cheney, or his operatives, already sounded out the officers whose cooperation he would need, and they told him, "SIR! NO, SIR!" Thank the Lord, our military forces have a strong tradition of not intervening in the civilian government. 
To FNLM: Dude, I don't think there IS a "Bat-Plan". I've read [I forget where] that Cheney is the main problem. The GOP elders thought Cheney was one of them, and they could rely on him to keep Dubya from doing crazy things. Cheney WAS the "Bat-Plan". Instead, Darth Cheney turned out to be crazy himself, maybe craziest of all. ["Pump Head", anyone?]
The Radical Right now OWNS the GOP. If the elders still held any real power, they would rein in the flying monkeys who are alienating the independent voters, and who maybe will even drive a significant chunk of non-voters to the polls to vote against the RR in 2008.
May 2008 be the year the GOP elephant jumps the shark.
IBW:
Yes. Pump Head is a complication of bypass surgery whose causes are uncertain but is thought to be "mental changes [...] due to the showering of the brain with tiny particles (microemboli) related to the use of the bypass pump (the heart/lung machine, that oxygenates and pumps the blood while the heart is stopped during surgery.)"
"...In seven years, we have become the largest debtor nation the world has ever known, almost all of which has gone directly into the pockets of the richest 1-2%, a looting not seen in recorded history...."
It's worse than that because it is really the top 0.1% this is truly looting the U.S. Treasury.
The ReThugs' motto? "Fuck everybody but me"
"...It's fine if we're liberal demons who protect hippies, n**gers and wetbacks, drug addicts, hookers and welfare queens, but they'll be godDAMNED if we're getting credit for doing any thing for good solid Americans living in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire or Iowa...."
Hey! What about us QUEERS? I feel slighted after the ReThugs made so much political hay off us in 2004. 
Desperation indeed. Today I got a robocall from the Chamber of Commerce. Since when does the Chamber of Commerce do robocalls? Not only that but in it they were saying that they wanted to expand S-CHIP to cover people under $80,000 a year instead of simply covering poor people.
Most people make under $80 a year. Will they be against a benefit that will be expanded to cover them? What planet is the Chamber living on where people will turn down an opportunity like this?
Correction, Most people make under 80 thousand a year either as a family or individuals. Why would people think it something bad if they could qualify for at leat a little help themselves? Back when the GOP was using welfare queens, the benefits were mostly going to people so poor that most working Americans never could qualify if they had a job. But Clinton raised the limits and allowed the working poor at least some access to help. Indeed, before Cisneros was hammered over his affair, Cisneros was revamping the housing situation so working class people could actually qualify and get some subsidized housing. There were attempt to encourage at least some homeownership among working class Americans and even some poor families.
So when the Republicans try politics of resentment, they find that a whole lot of more people are saying "wait a minute, that's my program!".
I would say that you should come to Canada for the health care; but, if your economy goes down, our economy goes down soon after.
Sorry, but I have to quibble with this:
William Jefferson Clinton left us an economy free of debt.
He left us with a budget surplus, which is a very different thing, with some of that surplus applied to actually paying off the national debt, over and above the interest payment that yearly blows a gigantic hole in the budget. Saying the economy Clinton left us was "free of debt" is like saying a family that's managed to get their finances in good enough order to add a few bucks to their already crushing credit-card payment (so they can actually start paying down the balance) is "debt-free".
I get what you're trying to say, Jesse, but it would have been more accurate to say "Clinton left us a government that was at least paying off its debt". Which was of course infinitely preferable to our current "take out a third mortgage and blow it on a coke spree" school of Dubyanomics, but let's not make it into something it wasn't.
Other than this minor criticism, IMO the rest of the post was one of your best. You did one hell of a job of tying together those quotations into a devastatingly cogent argument.
Yeah.
What prof fate said.
*must sleep*
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