[...]Afternoon Open Thread – Jack & Jill Politics[...]…

Thanks a lot for this amazing post. Really amazing!…

Not with Joe Scarborough (R-Dead Staffer In Office).

Mika. Is. Useless.

LIEberman would give a Droopy Dog look, and Gore would forgive him, walk away…and grimace in pain as he feels the shiv stuck in his back by his traitorous VP.

Not with Joe Scarborough (R-Dead Staffer In Office).

Mika. Is. Useless.

LIEberman would give a Droopy Dog look, and Gore would forgive him, walk away…and grimace in pain as he feels the shiv stuck in his back by his traitorous VP.

uh huh

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200910270041

Beck, we see you.

DALLAS — A model on the November cover of Teen Vogue is a 19-year-old who reveals in the magazine that she is pregnant.
Jourdan Dunn is not visibly pregnant on the cover, and Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Amy Astley said the magazine didn't know about Dunn's pregnancy until after the photo shoot. But she said that editors didn't consider pulling the cover Dunn shares with fellow model Chanel Iman.

Full Story: http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/pregnant-c…

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Hope Yen, Associated Press Writer – 38 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Many college graduates are passing up the Sunbelt and industrial centers, which have been hit hard by the recession, in favor of life in urban, high-tech meccas. Their moves are fueling a resurgence of brainiacs in parts of California, North Carolina and Texas.

Census data released Tuesday offer the first detailed look at U.S. migration data, broken down by education and income, since the recession began in late 2007.

The data covering 2006-2008 show that Austin, Texas, Portland, Ore., Charlotte and Raleigh, both in North Carolina, and Seattle saw large jumps in residents with at least a college degree. Each offers the promise of specialized tech jobs and hip lifestyles.

San Francisco, with its burgeoning biotech industry, and Houston, home to NASA and several medical centers, saw significant increases in residents with advanced-level graduate degrees.

In contrast, metropolitan areas with high rates of foreclosures, less tech-based economies or increasing unemployment saw declines or slower rates of growth in residents with a college degree or higher. They included Los Angeles, Atlanta, Orlando, Fla., as well as New Orleans, Detroit and Cleveland.

“During this economic downturn, young, educated professionals are heading for the high-tech 'cool' metros rather than the fast growing upstarts of the mid-decade,” said William Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution, who analyzed the data. “The investment in knowledge industries and young professional amenities in places like Austin, Raleigh and Seattle is now paying off.”

The United States is becoming increasingly educated. More than one in four U.S. residents now has a college degree, with many recent graduates looking for jobs in a depressed economy. States and cities are also striving to boost their tax bases and stay competitive by attracting highly educated and higher income residents.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091027/ap_on_go_ot…

From NBC's Mark Murray
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moves forward crafting a Senate health-care bill that contains a public option — with a state “opt out” — the latest NBC/WSJ poll shows support for a government-run insurance plan at its highest level since the debate began.

According to the poll, 48% say they favor a public health plan administered by the federal government that would compete with private insurers, compared with 42% who oppose it. That's a shift from last month, though within the margin of error, when 48% opposed the public option and 46% supported it. And it's a 10-point swing from August, when 47% were in opposition and 43% were in favor.

In another question asked a different way — is it important to give people a choice of a public option? — a combined 72% answered that it was either “extremely important” or “quite important,” while just 23% said it was “not that important” or “not at all important.” Those numbers are virtually unchanged from last month.

The NBC/WSJ poll, which was conducted Oct. 22-25, has a margin of error of +/- 4.4% on these two questions. The full poll will be released on Nightly News, and MSNBC.com, beginning at 6:30 pm ET.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/…

So here’s what Joe Lieberman claims the public option will do:

* Be costly to taxpayers
* Drive up premiums
* Involve cost-shifting to private plans
* Create an entitlement
* Increase the national debt
* Put more of a tax burden on taxpayers

As DDay points out, this is utter nonsense.

Lieberman’s justification on this is just nonsense – the public option would SAVE money for the government, to the tune of $100 billion dollars over 10 years according to the Congressional Budget Office. It also would cost nothing to the taxpayer, being financed by individual premiums.

But everything else Lieberman said is horse puckey. He is either completely ignorant about health care works (unlikely, for a Senator from Connecticut). Or, he’s lying his ass off as to his rationale.

Don’t you think the press ought to call him on that?

Of course the press ought to call him out on that, but that would require the press to understand the basics of the policies. They'd much rather talk about the personalities. They only pay attention to CBO scores when those scores create a fight, preferably between Dems, so that they can dust off the “Dems in Disarray” theme.

These news outlets won't spend the time or the energy to understand the very basics of policies. They certainly don't know or really even care that a robust pubic option makes fiscal sense for the economy, and good policy sense as well.

For what it's worth, Brian Beutler tried to push Lieberman on this. It didn't work.

This is at great odds with the findings of most experts, who say that, by bringing efficiencies into the greater insurance market, and therefore lowering the subsidy burden, a public option will actually save the government money.

I asked him to square his explanation with that of other experts, but he was undeterred. “Well all the history we have of health entitlement programs, including the two big ones that I dearly support, Medicare and Medicaid, is that they end up costing more than we're prepared to pay, and they add to the debt, and then they add to the burden on taxpayers.”

As written, congressional health care legislation would require the public option–whether administered by a government, or by an outside body–would be financed by premiums, and unable to draw on federal funds.

Lieberman doesn't care, and knows that Politico and AP and WaPo and any number of outlets don't care, so he'll keep on lying.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/27/79…