Jack & Jill Politics

My client's daughter goes to Gonzaga and is in Benin right now working with bringing more clean water to the country. Here's a link to the blog. If you look at Thursday's picture, the little red headed girl is Ellie. She was born weighing just a pound and six ounzes. She is only four eleven but is very large in personality! The call her little white one over there. If you click around the site, you will be able to find out more about the program and the technology. Be advised, the blog is written by a shelter young white girl, not Ellie but another one, and this is all so different for her.

http://web.mac.com/water_dr/WATER/WATER.html

I hope Craig's niece will also overcome her low birthweight and do worthwhile things.

This is the reason why I hope Gates sues the living shit out of Crowley and the BPD

Police Abuse: Cops Caught Plotting To Frame Motorist on Dash Cam

A cop's dashboard camera is supposed to catch criminals in the act. For four Hollywood cops, the dash cam may have foiled their plans to frame a motorist.

The four police officers -- three of them longtime veterans of the force -- were caught on one of the cop's dash cameras plotting to place the blame for a February traffic accident on a woman one of them had hit with their patrol car. The disturbing video shows the woman, Alexandra Torrensvilas, handcuffed in the back of the squad car as the officers get their stories straight on what they are going to say happened.

Officer Joel Francisco, 36, an 11-year veteran, crashed into the back of Torrensvilas' vehicle at a light on February 17 at midnight. The cop radioed to other officers who converged on the scene and hatched a way to bail Francisco out.

Officer Dewey Pressley, 42, arrives and questions Torrensvilas, who tells him that she has been drinking. The 21-year veteran officer seizes the opportunity and arrests her for DUI. But the plot thickens from there.

The cops begin to brainstorm believable excuses for the accident.

"As far as I'm concerned. I'm going to put words in his mouth. She went to accelerate and a cat jumped out of the window at which point he thought it could have been a pedestrian, which distracted him," Pressley tells Sgt. Andrew Diaz, another veteran of the force. "I mean what's the chances of hitting a f---in drunk when a cat jumps out of the window?"

Still, the cops run with the half-baked idea and rush to get Torrensvilas to do a Breathalyzer test so they can officially say she was drunk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6hgWK5CA4o

Cops aren't nothing but a bunch of criminals. And yeah, I'm talking about the "good" ones too. They're like a powerful gang and they don't snitch, therefore the "good" ones are as guilty as the bad ones. And they get away with it. Crowley straight up filed a false police report in broad daylight and everyone knows about it and not a damn thing is gonna happen to him!

Fuck the police!

As Huey P said..when folks occupying your hood, with they own language(signs), colors and got guns,...THAT's a GANG!

They're not only crooked..but dumb. Didn't they hatch this plan with the camera rolling?

EXZACTLY!!

JUSTICE.

UNDER.

The.

LAW.


sue sue sue

litigate NOW, Litigate tomorrah, LITIGATE for EVAH!!

Alright, George Wallace.

LOL.

A Boise Police officer who Tased a handcuffed man and threatened his genitals with further electric shock, is back on the beat after an unspecified disciplinary action sometime in May.

Police Taser in Genitals Sparks Investigations, Brutality Suit

---

Those who are caught seem to have no reason to be in fear of backlash from their actions.

In keeping w/ the theme of there's a riot going on the police pepper sprayed and tazed deaf and mentally retarded AfricanAmerican in a toilet stall.
Hat tip Pams House Blend
http://pamshouseblend.com/diary/12303/al-cops-t...

Now I am never going to back down on Gates and everybody else African American at Harvard thinking they could turn a different shade of pale in regards to the two AA women students whom weren't allowed to graduate but I am w/ Spirit. Gates needs to still sue the shit of Crowley. The police will take this meeting as having a free hand.

Anthony Weiner introduces amendement to repeal Medicare; puts Republicans on the Spot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTh-Yu9RfF0


Rachel Maddow interviews Anthony Weiner on healthcare, the Medicare paradox

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz5hG8LqxTI

SELF-REFERRING PHYSICIANS
Doctors Reap Benefits By Doing Own Tests

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009

In August 2005, doctors at Urological Associates, a medical practice on the Iowa-Illinois border, ordered nine CT scans for patients covered by Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance. In September that year, they ordered eight. But then the numbers rose steeply. The urologists ordered 35 scans in October, 41 in November and 55 in December. Within seven months, they were ordering scans at a rate that had climbed more than 700 percent.
The increase came in the months after the urologists bought their own CT scanner, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Instead of referring patients to radiologists, the doctors started conducting their own imaging -- and drawing insurance reimbursements for each of those patients.
In focusing on health-care reform this year, President Obama pledged that a revamped system would hold down exploding costs. But none of the players -- Congress, the administration or the array of interests involved in the process -- has offered a clear path to that goal. And efforts to control medical practices that have driven up expenses, including physician "self-referrals," underscore how difficult it is to alter entrenched patterns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

What are the criteria for clunker?

$2B more was just approved for the "cash4clunker" program.

Anyone know the what qualifies for clunker?

To be eligible, your clunker must be:

1) Operational.
2) Rated at no more than 18 miles per gallon (m.p.g.) combined city/highway. (Check your car’s rating here.) (Editor’s update: The Environmental Protection Agency updated mileage ratings on July 24, affecting the eligibility of some models. These changes will only affect trade-ins made after that date.)
3) A 1984 model or newer.
4) Worth less than $4,500 – or in some cases, $3,500. (The program just bumps up the trade-in value of your car to one of those amounts; you don’t get extra).
5) Owned by you for at least a year (so you can’t go out and buy one at the junkyard and then turn around and trade it in).

The car or truck you buy or lease must be:

1) New. (It can be foreign or domestic).
2) Rated at 22 m.p.g. (combined) or better. If it’s a car and gets at least 10 m.p.g. better than your old vehicle, you get a $4,500 voucher; otherwise, it’s $3,500. For trucks, it’s more complicated. (Click here for details.)
3) Be worth no more than $45,000.
4) Bought between July 1 and Nov. 1 (but Congress has the option of extending the $1 billion program if it comes up with more money).

csmonitor

Thank you. I now know I have a clunker.The kids car/truck qualifies Had not been paying attention.
Do I get money or rebate?

update:

Questioned answered went to the link.

Thanks so much.

Re: Davis Will Vote "No" Against House Health Care Bill

Artur Davis will lose the race for governor of Alabama; he wouldn't get elected even if he was a Republican. What's more important, though, is that Black voters--hopefully--will remember that he pandered to Alabama's anti-Obama constituency. And they should never vote for him again.

I have no problem with anyone being opposed to certain aspects of the health care reform bill. But if Davis doesn't know that the vast majority of his likely voters are in favor of that bill, then he shouldn't be governor anyway.

Has he given a reason for why he's voting against it?

He is selling out poor black folks in his district and by extension all poor black folks across this country in desparate need of health care coverage. And for what?! A delusional pipedream of becoming governor of AL?! There are but a few things in this life I know to be absolutely true and one of them is Artur Davis will NEVER be governor of AL!

Well you ask for it and here it is.The GOP Health Plan
The GOP's "Empower Patients First Act," sponsored by Republican House Study Committee Chairman Tom Price, is a $700 billion giveaway to the health insurance industry and its introduction creates a huge opening for the White House and congressional Democrats in the health reform debate. It has three main elements:

Health insurance deregulation. The bill would deregulate the insurance market, dismantling state-level consumer protections and allowing insurance giants to sell their plans nationwide without fear of oversight. (Edit, 9:41AM: The problem here is that the GOP plan creates an unregulated national market, unlike the Democratic proposal for a national insurance exchange, which would create a national market, but with consumer protections.)
Subsidizing private health insurance. The bill would give private health insurance subsidies to lower-income individuals and families. This sounds good at first, but subsidies in the absence of other reforms will simply increase the cost of health insurance for everybody else, leading to another inflationary spiral in health care.
No comprehensive plan to pay for plan. In order to fund subsidies, the bill calls for a 1% annual cut in Federal discretionary spending each year for the next decade, yielding about $120 billion. Although this would result in major across-the-board cuts in federal spending, it still leaves nearly $600 billion unfunded. Republicans say they can find "efficiencies" in the health care system to cover that $600 billion shortfall, including malpractice reform, but fail to offer specifics, suggesting the legislation would dramatically increase the deficit.
In sum, the Republican health bill would be a disaster for ordinary Americans, but it's the health insurance industry's dream. It slashes consumer-protection regulations, it increases health care costs by subsidizing private insurance while simultaneously deregulating it, and it would create another explosion of federal debt.

Needless to say, the GOP legislation also provides the Obama Administration with a golden opportunity to turn the narrative about health care reform on its head. After spending weeks on the receiving end of Republican attacks, the White House finally has a stationary target upon which they can return fire.

Understandably, the White House may not want to send President Obama out there to attack Republicans, but that's okay. Vice President Biden can deliver the message instead.

Imagine if early next week the vice president delivered a major speech blistering the Republican health care reform plan, exposing it as a huge giveaway to the private insurance industry at the expense of ordinary Americans.

Republicans would find themselves playing defense, trying to make the case that they hadn't proposed giving away the store to private insurance companies when in fact, they obviously have.

For some reason, even though the public isn't buying it, Republicans have managed to maintain the appearance that they are winning the debate on health reform. What better way to reboot the narrative than to knock GOPers flat on their feet by forcing them to defend their own legislative proposal?

It's true that the House will be in recess next week, but that doesn't mean cable tv, newspapers, or online media are shutting down. In fact, political reporters will be hungry for a good story. Why not give it to them?

This week, Republicans made a big strategic mistake by giving Democrats a juicy target to attack during the August recess. Next week, they should start paying the price.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/31/760...

Thank ya, DJ.

I don't know if anyone noticed but the cash for clunkers program, open for 3 days has gone through a billion dollars. this is a straight out welfare program as it is a straight transfer to someone whom meets a requirement.

Right now the House is voting to enlarge the program to an additional $3 billion. Who wants to bet on how many Republicans vote for it? So I expect we should be hearing from Conserv1, Karmi and D any minute.

Hey, RobM!

There...I weighed in.

I'm more interested in the bill to regulate executive compensation than I am cash for clunkers.

But, hey...if the government can't get that program together, I'm certain their management of healthcare will go just as smoothly.

Right?

Whaaaat? D you GOP right? You want regulation salaries? Please explain.

No, I don't...don't think it's the government's role to interject their thoughts on what companies pay their employees.

Next thing you know, they'll limit compensation for Republican strategists/consultants/campaign workers. LOL.

This where I disagree w/ you on compensation. Compensation coming off a trading desk is fine if it is a private company. It needs to be a private company because otherwise the taxpayer is on the hook for the losses.

The other place is in corporate structures where you allow bonus for making your target by firing your people instead of making your contibution to the bottom line.


The repeal of Glass Stegall allowed this. Goldman Sachs was private before that.

ooooKaaaay!

hear you


lol lol lol

First they came for the CEOs....

LOL.

Spoken like a true capitalist!!

Let me undest this, the program is more wildly successful than anyone's expectations and this means the government "can't get that program together"?

I know, right? Somebody in my office said that this morning and I'm still trying to get my head around that logic.

What is it that the government cannot get together?The program was so successful that auto dealers want more of it.Look just because your party is so incompetant that they couldnt spell cat if you spotted them the c and t dont try to put that label on democrats.

I don't have to put anything on them...they seem to be doing a good enough job of putting stuff on themselves.

You tell me how the underfunding-really, that's all it is-of CfC is supposed to inspire any confidence on the government's math to fund healthcare.

Those banks and FannieMae returning bailout money right& left. Seems to me the gov't knows full well, under the Obama administration, how to not make folks 'want' gov't money!!

It was underfunded because your party instead of doing whats right for a change, cut out a large portion of the original funds.Your party should governing for a change instead of finding ways to to enrich the have mores.

Um, we're not the majority party. You won, remember?

If you wanted the additional funding, it could've been put back in.

No blame to pass on this one. Sorry. Own your mistakes as well as your successes.

And we just did.Republicans objected to it using their tired line about the deficit and our weak kneed leader reid went along with them and cut the program.Now I agree with you WE ARE THE MAJORITY and we should use our power accordingly.Thats why I dont want to hear anything about bi-partisinship.Your party cannot be trusted,they are incompetant and they want the President to fail.And dont worry, much sooner than later the democratic leaders will get the message.We put you in.We will take you out.

Hey, fair enough.

Long as you know the window for blaming the GOP is just about closed...fight's on.

As long as are in Iraq and till we get our house in order the GOP will always be blamed.But you right the fight is on even though it might not be fair.You have more idiots than us.

Doubt it. You're the majority.

LOL.

Majority or not..you still have more idiots. Bachmann..is a real stand out.

Majority or not..you still have more idiots.

There's some Democratic math for you. LOL

lol

Long as you do not make it partisan. I will agree with you,
the masses are asses.

You may have a point.LOL

The house just approved for $2B more!

It may be welfare but name one industry that the government doesnt give welfare to.I like the program because 1.It gets gas guzzlers off the road saving us in energy cost in the future.2.It can help the domestic auto industry even though forighn carmakers are included.3.It keeps american auto workers employed at least for the time being.

There is welfare for EVERYTHING! So, whay not have a program that puts more fuel efficient cars on the road?

co-signing

I agree! There ares so many 'subsidies' for bigbusineess...whether it is farmers or the corner grocery store....no one EVER calls that welfare...!!

it had 4 billion in it initially. the gop took the money out

JJP NEEDS a panic room for JJPers!

hah

Did Warren Burger Create the Health Care Mess?
The 1975 antitrust decision that gave you physician-owned hospitals.

On May 15, a 25-year-old woman named Hilary Carpenter had an operation at the Colorado Orthopaedic and Surgical Hospital in Denver to replace a shunt valve in her brain. After the surgery, Carpenter experienced a severe headache and nausea. After consulting with a physician on duty, a registered nurse at the hospital administered Demerol, but the dosage was wrong, and Carpenter's heart stopped. In a scene that state investigators later described as "chaotic," hospital staff was unable to locate quickly the equipment needed to revive Carpenter. According to the investigators, there were only a few people on hand that day to deal with the crisis, and those present lacked training to handle such emergencies. Eventually the staff did something you wouldn't normally expect a hospital to do: They called 911. A paramedic team took Carpenter to a different hospital, where she died.
A July 17 news story about this incident in the Denver Post prompted an immediate outcry from Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Democratic chairman and ranking Republican member of the finance committee, then as now struggling to craft a bipartisan health reform bill. The occasion for their outrage was that the Colorado Orthopaedic and Surgical Hospital is one of about 230 hospitals in the United States that are owned by doctors, nearly all of them so-called "specialty hospitals" that steer clear of the seriously ill or uninsured. "Sen. Baucus and I have worked for years now to address the concerns that come with physician-owned hospitals," Grassley said, "including inherent conflicts of interests for physician-owners and, more importantly, patient safety. I remain concerned about the ability of these facilities to address emergency situations." The senators have written into their still-incomplete reform bill that any new doctor-owned hospitals will be barred from participating in Medicare and that existing doctor-owned hospitals must increase safety precautions. The House bill (which has finally won support from Blue Dog Democrats with what appear to be minor concessions) contains a similar provision.

Doctor-owned hospitals are the most conspicuous manifestation of a culture of entrepreneurship that's gone a long way toward creating today's health care crisis. Although traditional economic theory holds that competition drives prices down, in medicine competition had tended to drive prices up as doctors explored new avenues for profit, most typically through fee-for-service overuse of expensive technologies and procedures. It's easy to shrug at such things and say, "That's capitalism." But, in fact, market-driven medicine didn't exist a generation ago, because the American Medical Association didn't allow it. "I saw it happen before my own eyes," says Dr. Arnold Relman, 86, emeritus professor at Harvard Medical School and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. Relman has written extensively (most recently in the New York Review of Books) about what he terms "the medical-industrial complex." Much of the blame for its creation, Relman believes, lies with the Supreme Court's 1975 decision in Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar.

Goldfarb doesn't get a lot of attention from the health-reform crowd, partly because (as its name suggests) it was a case involving lawyers, not doctors, and partly because it extended the reach of antitrust law, something usually favored by the same sort of Democrats who want to make health insurance universal.

Lewis H. Goldfarb was a homebuyer in Fairfax County, Va., who got mad when he couldn't find a title-search lawyer willing to charge less than 1 percent of the purchase price, the minimum recommended by the county's bar association and enforced by the state bar. Goldfarb maintained that the bar's imposition of a minimum fee constituted price fixing and violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Supreme Court agreed, and in a unanimous opinion (minus Justice Lewis Powell, who recused himself), Chief Justice Warren Burger concluded that law and other "learned professions" participated in "trade or commerce" as defined by the Sherman Act and therefore could not engage in "anticompetitive conduct."

Nowhere in the opinion did the words medicine or doctor appear, but the implications for health care were immediately obvious. Prior to Goldfarb, Relman explains, any notion that doctors or hospitals might seek to maximize profits was deemed a violation of professional ethics. AMA guidelines forbade doctors to advertise, to sell drugs, or to own a financial interest in any lab or machinery they used to perform tests. Medical doctors' sole source of income in the health arena was supposed to be the care of patients (or supervising the care of patients). "For the most part," Relman says, "those guidelines were followed."

After Goldfarb, the AMA's lawyers warned that such prohibitions risked being struck down in court as anti-competitive. So the AMA altered its message. Doctors could now have other sources of health care-related income, provided these money-making activities weren't harmful to patients and that patients knew about them. In 1982, the Supreme Court followed up on Goldfarb by striking down not a minimum fee but a maximum fee imposed by Arizona's Maricopa County Medical Society. Federal regulations were imposed to ban a few particularly egregious types of physician self-dealing.

But in general, especially after Ronald Reagan became president, there was a paradigm shift. Where once government had sought to police the health care sector mainly to protect patients, now it sought to police it mainly to protect a competitive health care marketplace. A thriving health care bazaar, it was assumed, would serve patients' interests. This is the theory that bequeathed us doctor-owned hospitals, the endless churning of marginally valuable medical tests, and dermatologists' waiting rooms where patients are bombarded with video infomercials in which their very own doctors market skin creams and facelifts. "The same investors who started Kentucky Fried Chicken," Relman complains, "started the Hospital Corporation of America!" (The common link is Jack Massey.)

The failure of market-driven medicine was foretold by Nobel Prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow in a 1963 paper ("Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care") that is widely credited with inventing the discipline of health care economics. (In 1963, the health care sector was so sleepy financially and so dominated by nonprofit do-gooders that economists saw little reason to study it.) There were several factors making it difficult to impose a market model on medicine, Arrow wrote. Demand for services was "irregular and unpredictable," and the buyer was physically vulnerable. Judging the value of the product (i.e., medical treatment) entailed a degree of uncertainty "perhaps more intense … than in any other important commodity," which was compounded by the presumption of an extreme asymmetry between the doctor's knowledge and the patient's. Complicating matters even further, the patient didn't pay; his insurance company did. The doctor "acts as a controlling agent on behalf of the insurance companies," making sure the patient didn't overuse his services, but only up to a point; "the physicians themselves are not under any control and it may be convenient for them or pleasing to their patients to prescribe more expensive medication, private nurses, more frequent treatments, and other marginal variations of care."

In an online interview last week with Conor Clarke of the Atlantic, Arrow (now 87) said that "the basic analysis hasn't changed," but "[s]ome specifics have changed." Arrow explained that in his 1963 paper he emphasized that market forces were supplemented by

professional commitments to provide a service, to engage in services that aren't self-serving. Standards of caring decided by non-economic actors. And one problem we have now is an erosion of professional standards. In a way there is more emphasis on markets and self-aggrandizement in the context of health care, and that has led to some of the problems we have today.

I'm no economist, but what I think Arrow is saying here is that health care today conforms a little better to standard economic theory than it did in 1963, but that the invisible hand's gain has been medicine's loss. Goldfarb isn't the only reason for the change, but it's a major one.

Relman believes that the health reform bill, if it passes, won't do much to solve the problem, because it does almost nothing to inhibit medical entrepreneurship. "The idea that health care is a legitimate arena for investment is monstrous," Relman says. "Things are going to have to get a lot worse and the costs are going to have to become absolutely intolerable, and then people will finally begin to realize that the system we have doesn't work right." Part of that change, Relman says, should come from the Supreme Court. If Congress outlawed for-profit medicine, perhaps "the Supreme Court would be willing to take another look at this." The Supreme Court? Where the Chicago school is king? Relman's answer skirts thrillingly close to violating the Hippocratic oath. "Where there's death, my friend, there's always hope."

[Update, July 30: In today's New York Times, Kevin Sack and David Herszenhorn report on an energetic lobbying effort by the doctor-owned Doctors Hospital at Renaissance in Edinburg, Texas, that helps explain why existing doctor-owned hospitals (as opposed to future ones) would be permitted to continue participating in Medicare under the House and Senate bills. Suffice it to say that traditional market economics, while not easily applied to health care (a point explored further by Alec MacGillis in today's Washington Post), apply all too well to the legislative process. The Doctors Hospital at Renaissance is not a specialty hospital, but it was criticized for wasteful spending in Atul Gawande's much-cited New Yorker piece about excessive Medicare spending in McAllen, Texas, which is next door to Edinburg. ("[I]t has a reputation," Gawande wrote, "for aggressively recruiting high-volume physicians to become investors and send patients there. Physicians who do so receive not only their fee for whatever service they provide but also a percentage of the hospital's profits from the tests, surgery, or other care patients are given.") Overall, the Washington Post (citing figures from the Center For Responsive Politics) reports that the health care sector is spending close to $1.5 million a day to influence health reform.]

http://www.slate.com/id/2223841/pagenum/all/#p2

"There were several factors making it difficult to impose a market model on medicine, Arrow wrote. Demand for services was "irregular and unpredictable," and the buyer was physically vulnerable. Judging the value of the product (i.e., medical treatment) entailed a degree of uncertainty "perhaps more intense … than in any other important commodity," which was compounded by the presumption of an extreme asymmetry between the doctor's knowledge and the patient's ..... The idea that health care is a legitimate arena for investment is monstrous"

I am going to save Conserv the trouble"But,but its the free market and you hate people making money and without the health insurance industry we would'nt have the swellest,bestest technolgy in the world.Why do you hate America?

OK, my reply would be, if you are not sick now. Are you sick after looking at moneycare CEO's salaries?

Forbes
David B Snow Jr CEO Medco Health, $21.76 million, 5-Year Compensation Total $36.29 million.
Dale B Wolf CEO Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million, 5-Year Compensation Total $61.91 million.
Michael B McCallister CEO Humana, $20.06 million, 5-Year Compensation Total $60.64 million.
Ronald A Williams CEO Aetna $8.88 million.
Trevor Fetter CEO Tenet Healthcare $5.80 million, 5-Year Compensation Total $19.08 million.
Stephen J Hemsley CEO UnitedHealth $4.00 million.
John H Hammergren CEO McKesson $44.91 million, 5-Year Compensation Total $94.59 million.
Miles D White CEO Abbott Laboratories $44.76 million, 5-Year Compensation Total $76.47 million.
William C Weldon CEO Johnson & Johnson $15.41 million, 5-Year Compensation Total $49.15 million.
Jeffrey B Kindler CEO Pfizer $5.76 million.
John C Lechleiter CEO Eli Lilly & Co $5.13 million.
James M Cornelius CEO Bristol-Myers Squibb $5.06 million.

Channeling Conserv again"See the market works look all those glorious salaries, now I have to go over the GOP health care plan to figure out how can I sell this bullsh*t."

The "swellest, bestest"...OMG...that is classic

“Democrats so far this cycle have received $7.3 million in contributions from the health sector, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which is 72 percent more than the GOP’s haul. The top two recipients of cash from health sector political action committees are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The top recipient of PAC money from HMOs is Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., lead architect of the House plan. And then there’s Baucus, whose coziness with industry lobbyists is legendary. Last election, Obama far outpaced John McCain in contributions from the health sector, HMOs and drugmakers.”

I hope this is worth it for Rep Arthur Davis, but I'm from Louisiana, and I have family who have worked and lived in Alabama, and he has NO chance of being the Governor of Alabama. I'd bet some serious money on it. Hell he might have a better chance of winning in those "northernize" southern states like Virginia, but not Alabama.

Davis Will Vote "No" Against House Health Care Bill

Rep. Artur Davis -- citing cost and the burden on small business -- says he'll vote against the House health care bill.

He's running for governor of very conservative Alabama, so this is very much the calculation of a Red State Democrat, but also a sign of just how hard these politics are...

Bet ALL your money on it!

...and the election's not until next year?

Ballsy. We'll see if that stance survives the recess or not.

You mean when he finds out the fund-raising spigot for him is completely dry and that it will extend to any Democrat that campaigns for him in AL?

LOL. Exactly.

If he sticks with it, this far out from the election, good on him.

But I halfway expect him to back off it...in which case he looks like a punk to me.

"citing cost and the burden on small business -- says he'll vote against the House health care bill. "

O yeah...he is in FULL campaign mode!

his ass should be beat, and the Black folk in that district should vote for his opponent

His ass should be whuped in public! I left a message with his office that it is an unconscionable betrayal of trust to his constituents and his party. Is he actually delusional enought to believe he has a chance of winning state-wide in AL?! This is where Al Sharpton and traditional civil rights group can most effective in the health care fight, kicking the asses of the congressional black caucus if they don't fall in line. I can't speak for all black folk, but Nancy Pelosi certainly has my permission to stick her foot up his ass!

Speaker Pelosi has my permission to stick her foot in all their sellout asses.

They also sent forgeries in the name of the NAACP, too.

For those like me, who are not as familiar with the health care reform legislation process going on right now (I try to refrain from commenting on things I know nothing about, until I at least learn something about it, a trait that I wish others on this board would share as well, LOL, you know who I'm talking about), here is what seems to me a good rundown on the current legislative process, and where we are. Of course, for the more knowledgeable among us please let me know if the article has the gist of it as you all understand it to be.

Rundown on Healthcre Reform: What's Happening on Capitol Hill