It's one thing for the government to say taxpayer $$$ can't be used to pay for abortions. I disagree, but at least I can understand that. It's entirely another thing for Congress to bar private insurance providers from paying for/towards abortions. Some people may not like it, but abortions are legal medical procedures, period. So I'm calling bullshit on this step backwards. Even with a generous assessment of the intentions behind this, it's bullshit the Democratic party had to sell out women -- the majority of their voters, by the freaking way -- to get their weaksauce HCR through the House.

Hopefully the Senate will water that shit down. Since watering stuff down is pretty much all the Senate is good for.

How is the public plan "not essential"? The whole point of healthcare reform is to make it less expensive, and the best way* to do that is to force HMOs to compete with a public health insurance plan. And the plan has to have teeth and power because if it doesn't, it could turn into a dumping ground for the most expensive people -- people that no HMO wants to insure in the first place. And if there's no public plan, doesn't the proposed healthcare reform basically amount to a government giveaway to insurance companies, with millions of people forced to buy insurance, a lot of them with government subsidies since so many of them won't be able to afford it?

I don't want to get overly melodramatic about this until there's actually a plan to be against, but I'm very unhappy about hearing the administration publicly signal that a public option isn't necessary.

And I cannot sanely express with words how deeply disappointed and kind of actually angry I am that the Democrats have so little confidence in their ability to get this done with the kind of majority they have. And why is the White House making back room deals with the pharmaceutical industry? Why do they need to do that? Why does that seem like a good idea to anybody? I don't even know, you guys. I feel like the EVIL SOCIALISM OBAMACARE HITLER STALIN FASCISTS debate is taking place on an entirely different plane that I have absolutely no interest in understanding at all. But somehow the one that I am paying attention to makes even less sense to me.

* Reform the shit out of torts, I really don't care. I have no love for "trial lawyers" or whoever it is that's supposedly the reason Democrats are against tort reform. But nothing I've read has indicated that tort reform is the answer to making healthcare cheaper.

Then there is the case of Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), who could not name more than three of the Ten Commandments when Colbert asked — despite the fact that Westmoreland had co-sponsored a bill providing for the tablets to be displayed in Georgia courthouses. A Republican Hill source told POLITICO that Westmoreland’s Better Know A District segment — and the additional footage that never made it on air — weighed into Westmoreland’s decision not to run for governor in 2010. - POLITICO

God bless you, Stephen Colbert.

( Gossip Girl )

Also, I totally forgot to put Annie Get Your Gun on my list of April movies! Which I will now rectify because I need to OMFG about how disturbing it was! I rented it for my littlest sister, who recently discovered "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" and wanted to see the whole movie. She liked it until the end, when Annie LOSES THE FINAL MATCH ON PURPOSE so Frank will stop feeling insecure about how talented she is and ask her to marry him. !!!!!!! On the one hand, I am glad she recognized what a total crock of bullshit the ending was because she immediately turned to me with a weird look on her face and said: "This is the worst movie ever." On the other hand, I feel bad about showing it to her in the first place. We talked about the reasons the movie was WRONG, and we talked about how important it is not to ever pretend to be stupid so that a boy will like you and to always do your best no matter what anybody might think of you. We also talked about how racist it was, but I'd expected that. Not that I don't also expect sexism from 50s movies, but I thought this was supposed to be a Girl Power movie! I mean, it's about Annie Oakley! BOO. HISS.

Mr. Obama, on the other hand, routinely ascribes to others views they don't espouse and says opposition to his policies is grounded in views no one really advocates. In his inaugural address -- which was generally graceful toward the opposition -- Mr. Obama proclaimed, "We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." Which Republican ran against him on fear, conflict and discord? [...]

Everyone resorts to straw men occasionally, but Mr. Obama's persistent use of the device is troubling. Continually characterizing those who disagree with you in a fundamentally dishonest way can be the sign of a person who lacks confidence in the merits of his ideas... Obama's straw men aren't enriching the dialogue of our age. They are cheapening it. - KARL FREAKING ROVE

No, seriously.

Also, that's PRESIDENT Obama to you.

These are not the words of a small-time asshat. These are the words of Michael Steele, the new "moderate" RNC chairman. He is one of the three most powerful Republicans in D.C.; he's the person in charge of "developing and promoting the Republican political platform." Here he is on the radio this week:

GALLAGHER: Is this a time when Republicans ought to consider some sort of alternative to redefining marriage and maybe in the road, down the road to civil unions. Do you favor civil unions?

STEELE: No, no no. What would we do that for? What are you, crazy? No. Why would we backslide on a core, founding value of this country? I mean this isn’t something that you just kind of like, “Oh well, today I feel, you know, loosey-goosey on marriage.” […]

GALLAGHER: So no room even for a conversation about civil unions in your mind?

STEELE: What’s the difference?

The sad thing is that Steele was criticized by a lot of conservatives (and lauded by moderate conservatives) for being friendly to the idea of civil unions for gays and lesbians. But now he's apparently convinced that supporting civil marriage would be BACKSLIDING ON THE CORE, FOUNDING VALUES OF THIS COUNTRY.

I know intellectually that this is not at all funny. And yet, I laughed. Because this is so pathetic. Not only are people Wrong about this, but can they not see they are on the completely wrong side of history? Gay marriage -- not civil unions -- is coming. Most everyone my age is supportive of the idea, even if we were raised to think otherwise, like me and my sisters. I can't really be concerned about this kind of ridiculousness because it comes off as the pathetic thrashing of a party in the death throes of ever increasing irrelevance. Please, continue to be completely divorced from reality, in particular the very real problem that people my age hear "Republican" and think "bigot" because of exactly this kind of TONE DEAFNESS. What are you, crazy?

“When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression... He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That’s just history.” - Rep. Steve Austria

Okay, this would be HILARIOUS if these weren't the actual words of an actual U.S. congressman who is responsible for helping to pull our economy out of its scary death spiral. So it's just sad. Who belongs to this representative and how can we get rid of him?

In more sobering news, the crazies (no, actually) are all but officially in charge of Israel, which means the two-state solution is as good as fucked. Neither party won an outright victory, but the right-wing made the biggest gains meaning they will form the coalition government. And last night's biggest winner is a far right-wing loon who wants to force Israeli-Arabs to take loyalty oaths or lose their citizenship, and who believes any Israeli-Arab politician who meets with Hamas should be executed. This strikes me as a really special development because if we don't have at least the idea of a feasible two-state solution to strive for, what exactly does that mean for our relationship with Israel? Things obviously cannot be permitted to go on as they have been for the Palestinians. And the idea of Israel ceasing to be a Jewish state and giving Palestinians full rights and representation seems equally unlikely.

Unless President Obama (!!!) is arranging the extraordinary rendition of Vanessa out of Gossip Girl, I'd prefer he not mess with my Monday night TV, thank you very much.

Jon Stewart being awesome almost made up for it, but his guest (who was saying that to save newspapers there needs to be a way for online readers to pay for the content they view) annoyed me. I wish someone had brought up the NYT's failed experiment with hiding their most popular content behind a subscription wall. I know I'm not the only one who remembers the two years where NYT op-eds vanished from national discourse! Plus the kind of reporting the guest wants people to pay for always gets minced and regurgitated and disseminated by dozens upon dozens of outlets until it saturates the market. I must have read ten things about the NSA wiretapping when the scandal first broke, but I never read the original USA Today article. I really think the answer is in increasing Internet ad revenues. It's just not right that Politico -- which was conceived as an Internet news source -- makes most of its ad revenue from distributing a free newspaper thrice weekly to less than 25,000 people. Far, far more people are viewing their Internet content, but somehow they're making a lot less money off of us. Does that represent a problem with the business model or a problem with consumer entitlement? Call me crazy, but I'm going with the former.

( Trust Me )

( Y&R has been kind of amazing? )

I was pleasantly surprised by how fun The Mentalist was tonight. Actually, I feel like it's been improving lately, and while the pop culture references continue to be alarmingly terrible and/or dated (a pick-up artist, seriously?) I am enjoying it anyway, and Simon Baker's acting has grown on me. Or maybe it was just Cho being ridiculously awesome, IDK.

Terrence Howard is on my shitlist.

( Private Practice, w/ casting and promo spoilers )

I watched THE PRESIDENT address the State Department and almost started crying because of how competent and smart and well-spoken he was. Mitchell is an excellent choice of envoy! I actually believe he can solve problems! It is so nice to have that in a president!

Less nice is Comcast. My Internet is running a little slow, but the really annoying part is that anything I try to download just times out after a couple MB. Big Love is a wash, but even my podcasts won't download via iTunes. Perplexing!

This is the meanest book review I have ever read. It is so mean it made me blush.

I never know quite what to think of Matt Taibbi. He is so mean, but he's also funny and usually right in an OMG, THAT'S SO WRONG kind of way.

Sarah Palin continues to utterly bemuse me. I watched the excerpts of her interview for some right wing "documentary" about how the mainstream media stole the election. First she whines about Katie Couric putting her on the spot with hard hitting questions like, "What newspapers and magazines do you read?" And when she's shown a clip of Katie Couric on Letterman wondering why no journalist ever followed up by asking her why she didn't answer such a completely innocuous question, Palin actually says:

“Because, Katie, you’re not the center of everybody’s universe.”

OH SNAP, KATIE COURIC JUST GOT TOLD. Maybe Governor Palin should consider running for student body president of Wasilla High in 2012.

In other news, what's going on in Gaza is massively depressing. I hope there's a ceasefire agreement as soon as is humanly possible, what with Israel's response getting more and more and more ridiculous by the day; I thought they'd damaged their interests (and ours) with just the bombing, but the invasion and the loss of life (257 children, says the UN) is unconscionable. I fundamentally do not believe Israel has anything to gain by inflicting poverty, misery, or fear on the people of Gaza; rather than inspire Gazans to reject Hamas, they're radicalizing the population and creating a highlight reel for terrorist recruiting tapes. But I hope this can be salvaged somehow. I <3 Jimmy Carter. It will be nice to have a real president again. 10 days!

Totally belated, but I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT SENATOR AL FRANKEN. Best late Christmas gift ever, thank you thank you thank you Minnesota! I was worried a couple of times, but like Garrison Keillor says: "You shouldn't sweep a comedian into office on a wave of public adulation any more than you should let him win the heroine in the first reel. First you need him to move a piano up a long flight of stairs, and that's what Al Franken is doing now. He is leading the race by 50 225 votes or so out of 2.9 million cast. And when he boosts the piano to the top, he'll sit down and play Chopin."

( Gossip Girl )

( Private Practice )

In political news, Glenn Greenwald can see inside my brain, Rahm Emanuel is still a douche, and Franken is looking pretty good in the Minnesota recount! He's up about 250 right now, although he'll lose a lot of that lead once all the withdrawn challenges are added back in (and he withdrew several hundred more than his opponent, so he could conceivably fall behind, although it looks like he'll maintain a double digit lead). It is just too bad that the MN Supreme Court botched a major ruling on improperly rejected absentee ballots. Coleman went to court trying to use Bush v. Gore's fascinating insights on the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution as a precedent to keep those ballots (which are thought to favor Franken) from being counted. But instead the Supreme Court helpfully issued an order that the ballots be counted, with the caveat that *both* campaigns must agree that each individual ballot was improperly rejected before it can be opened and counted. YEAH, THAT'LL WORK. This election could very conceivably be won by a double digit margin. There are as many as 1600 absentee ballots! The stupid BURNS. Supreme Courts should clearly not be allowed near recounts.

This internal GOP memo is kind of hilarious. ( *boggle* )

In environmental news, I actually love that President Bush is using his last weeks in office to pass cartoonishly terrible environmental deregulations, like opening millions of acres of protected public land to mining and development, or raising caps on coal-fired power plant pollution, or increasing the amount of fun chemicals like arsenic that are allowed in our drinking water. He's been such a sadsack this past year that I was actually starting to feel sorry for him, even though I really, really didn't want to. But now my heartstrings are cured of any tugging that might have been inspired by the Shakespearian tragicomedy that has been his presidency. And I appreciate that.

And I especially appreciate that this will be the LAST TIME I ever use this icon.

8:33 The numbers are bad. The Republicans really turned out their base. This looks like it's going to be a total disaster. I mean, we're even getting slammed in Gwinnet.

8:39 Feel free to secede from the union, Cobb County.

8:51 We're fucked. The gap will tighten since the Atlanta counties are always the last to fully report, but we're not winning tonight.

8:58 Nate Silver says there aren't enough votes in Atlanta for Martin to overtake the gap, even if the Democrats did turn out. Which apparently we did not.

9:01 Everybody's called it, so it's over.

9:56 You get the government you deserve (Ben Franklin), and as our Democratic precincts continue to underperform, I guess we deserve six more years of Saxby. Which is depressing because what gets lost in the vehement, legendary grudge the Democrats have against Saxby for his campaign against Max Cleland in '02 (Obama even mentioned it in The Audacity of Hope) is that the real reason Saxby deserved to be defeated is because he has been such a rotten senator. I think he probably genuinely believes he's doing his job, but he believes his job is representing Georgia's special interests and "Georgia values" which actually equals the Christianist agenda. When he was subpoeaned to testify in a state case against a major donor of his, he claimed "legislative immunity," which is an extremely creative interpretation of the Georgia constitution. So that is who we reelected today, which is really, really depressing and embarrassing, and I apologize on behalf of my state for sending him back to the Senate.

But on the bright side, election season is over. And I was very ready for it to be over.

It should really, really be illegal to start celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving.

( 5 Stupid Political Memes That Make Me Want To Pull My Hair Out )

I'm thinking about starting a GG bulletin board community because gossipgirltv is driving me crazy with all of their consolidation threads for the good stuff while all the lame, irrelevant stuff takes over. (I mean, would you rather have separate posts for picspam/recaps or for pictures from Penn and Blake's Juicy Couture appearance?) I really don't want to run it alone, though. Or at all, if possible. revertigo would usually be my go-to on this, but I think you have made too many enemies, bb. Any takers?

Look on the bright side, rez_lo! Now he'll never be Speaker of the House.

P.S. Norm Coleman's pre-certification lead over Al Franken has shrunk to 339. This one's going to break my heart, isn't it? Since I am all about bright sides, at least this means I have time to get used to the idea of Al losing. And TPM has started investigating Coleman, too. This jerk is going down one way or the other.

Dude. Just when I'd got all my warm and fuzzy feelings about the Democratic party back, this video went a long way towards killing them dead. And I don't even like Matt Taibbi!

BROKEN DEMOCRACY IS BROKEN.

I am definitely sympathetic with regard to the free speech zone (even though the name is absurd) because the DNC protests get pretty rowdy, and I have trouble imagining how protesters could be allowed to assemble in a way that would give them access to the convention and the delegates without creating a security nightmare. But since most protesters opted to march and/or assemble in public areas around Denver anyway, rather than be invisible in the "free speech zone," the DNC could better job for sure. But, ugh, those parties are RIDICULOUS.

What the fuck, John Edwards? I can't even believe he had the nerve to run for the nomination with that sort of a skeleton rattling around in his closet. Seriously, how dare he? (And do not even give me any high-minded bullshit about how his personal life shouldn't matter.) POLITICIANS. They cannot be trusted.

But the opening ceremony was amazing! You did good, China.

Watching Recount is the weirdest experience ever. Right now I'm at the part where all the Gore officials are realizing that the network's numbers are wrong and they're trying to stop Gore from making his concession speech, but no one can get in touch with the right people, and it is all very EXCITING and DRAMATIC. No, Vice President Gore, don't concede!

Until I remember that I ALREADY KNOW HOW THIS MOVIE ENDS. And it is the WORST. ENDING. EVER.

Plus I keep wishing myself into the movie so I can tell all of Gore's campaign officials exactly what they need to do to win Florida and SAVE THE WORLD. Forget Palm Beach! State-wide recount! DON'T go to the Supreme Court! ASSASSINATE KATHERINE HARRIS! Okay, I'm joking about that last one. Mostly.

ETA: *headdesk* Still, Kevin Spacey was amazing, and it cracks me up (and grosses me out!) that Jim Baker loves the movie. And I love that the movie was written by Doyle! As in Paris's boyfriend on Gilmore Girls! And did you know that Laura Dern is totally married to Ben Harper? WELL PLAYED, LAURA DERN.