Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.25

The Baucus White Paper: The Plan
To be mad at Max Baucus for the way he has been handling the Finance Committee's health care negotiations is one thing. But if you really want to get mad at him, and I mean blindingly, white hot seeing red mad, just go back and read his white paper from November of last year for his own plans for health care reform. Employer mandates, a strong Heath Insurance Exchange, and a strong public insurance option. In short, a plan that is not only more liberal than any of the bills under consideration, but one that is considerably more liberal (and more helpful) than anything he's even allowing his own committee to consider. Boo this man.

CIA Bio Says 9/11 Mastermind’s Days in N.C. ‘Helped Propel Him to Terrorism
According to CIA reports, it seems that time that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed spent in school in North Carolina sent him on the path towards terrorism by proving to him that "the United States was a debauched and racist country". All I can say is thank God he didn't go to school in South Carolina otherwise those planes might have had nukes on them. Not that he would have had much of a chance at survival in SC. The treacherous mountain of Afghanistan are one thing, but the Appalachians are another.

GOP Tees Up Medicare Manifesto
The GOP is starting up it's campaign to vigorously defend Medicare and Medicaid from any tampering from nefarious Democrats. It's nice that heir contribution to health care is going to be to gin up another fake issue that isn't happening and vow valiantly to defend it from invisible menace. Though it is nice to see Republicans swear their allegiance to a government run single payer health care system like Medicare. If only that massive bit of hypocrisy could be used in some way.

Obama nominates Ben Bernanke for a second Fed term
Ahh, Ben Bernanke is awarded his rightful place and our Eternal Money Overlord. Why? Because I guess he cuts checks to the financial sector better than anyone else. It's certainly not for his predictive power or a magic ability to lower interest rates below zero. It's good to know that everyone thinks he's the right man for the job. Why? Because he has the job. And really, that's all we need to know about him or his many varied secretive actions that incur little oversight.

Hospitals May Face Severe Disruption in Swine Flu’s U.S. Return
Oh sure you thought Porcine AIDS was dead. That's just what the nasty little pig virus wanted you to think. Now it's just lying in wait and according to the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (fresh from their eight year exile at bible camp) infect half the US population within the next year. That's right: THE APOCALYPSE IS BACK ON!!!!! The only question is if it will take the form of the much discussed the Stand scenario, or have new movies like the Book of Eli and the Road presaged our impending post-apocalyptic wandering doom?

What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report
Glenn Greenwald compiles an interesting list of torture tidbits from the IG Torture Report that you should be exited to learn was done in your name. This ought to give you a nice base of outrage for the impending sham investigations of lower level grunts that Eric Holder and the Justice Department are about to undertake.