<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0"><channel><title>con·cept2 poly ticks</title><description>we are the power</description><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</managingEditor><pubDate>Wed, 23 Oct 2024 05:00:56 -0500</pubDate><generator>Blogger http://www.blogger.com</generator><openSearch:totalResults xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/">547</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/">1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/">25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/</link><language>en-us</language><itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><itunes:subtitle>we are the power</itunes:subtitle><itunes:category text="News &amp; Politics"/><itunes:owner><itunes:email>noreply@blogger.com</itunes:email></itunes:owner><item><title>Obama Urged to Work Closely with People Suing Him - The New Yorker</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2014/11/obama-urged-to-work-closely-with-people.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Fri, 7 Nov 2014 10:42:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-7233086651505863699</guid><description>&lt;div dir="ltr"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/obama-urged-work-closely-people-suing?utm_source=tny&amp;amp;utm_medium=email&amp;amp;utm_campaign=borowitz&amp;amp;mbid=nl_110614_borowitz&amp;amp;CNDID=29582143&amp;amp;spMailingID=7266848&amp;amp;spUserID=NTkzMzU1NjQyOTcS1&amp;amp;spJobID=560642697&amp;amp;spReportId=NTYwNjQyNjk3S0"&gt;http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/obama-urged-work-closely-people-suing?utm_source=tny&amp;amp;utm_medium=email&amp;amp;utm_campaign=borowitz&amp;amp;mbid=nl_110614_borowitz&amp;amp;CNDID=29582143&amp;amp;spMailingID=7266848&amp;amp;spUserID=NTkzMzU1NjQyOTcS1&amp;amp;spJobID=560642697&amp;amp;spReportId=NTYwNjQyNjk3S0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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WASHINGTON (&lt;a href="http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;The Borowitz Report&lt;/a&gt;) – President Obama is under increasing pressure to work closely and coöperatively with a group of people who are suing him in federal court, the people suing him confirmed today.&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a class="" href="http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/andy-borowitz" itemprop="url" rel="me" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Andy Borowitz"&gt;&lt;img alt="borowitz" class="" src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/borowitz-320.png" height="320" itemprop="thumbnail" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="320" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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Andy Borowitz is a New York&amp;nbsp;&lt;em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;Times&lt;/em&gt;&amp;nbsp;best-selling author and a comedian who has written for&amp;nbsp;&lt;em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;The New Yorker&lt;/em&gt;&amp;nbsp;since 1998. He writes the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;Borowitz Report&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;for &lt;a href="http://newyorker.com/"&gt;newyorker.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;
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</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>The Question - Obama For America TV Ad</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-question-obama-for-america-tv-ad.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:26:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-3136335995180359677</guid><description>&lt;iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YiVe_7kTTdQ?fs=1" width="480"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

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linkholder</description><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" height="72" url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/YiVe_7kTTdQ/default.jpg" width="72"/><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Republican('ts) pretend to have a jobs plan...</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2011/10/republicants-pretend-to-have-jobs-plan.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Sat, 22 Oct 2011 03:02:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-3770028693462691511</guid><description>&lt;div style="border: solid 1px #dfdfdf; color: #686868; font: 13px Arial;"&gt;
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&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Alfred Ingram shared a post with you on Google+.&lt;/span&gt; Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;"&gt;Learn more&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;
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Republican('ts) pretend to have a jobs plan. Actually, they have had a successful job plan. Their policies have been creating jobs in India and China, Taiwan and Singapore and Korea. Unfortunately, those countries reciprocal policies don't create jobs here. Nor should they. They create jobs for the people they represent. Funny, Chinese Communists and Indian Socialists won't let ideology trump reality when economic growth is involved, but Republican'ts just can't.&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/opinion/party-of-pollution.html?nl=todaysheadlines&amp;amp;emc=tha212"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="https://images3-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=https://s2.googleusercontent.com/s2/favicons?domain%3Dwww.nytimes.com&amp;amp;container=focus&amp;amp;gadget=a&amp;amp;rewriteMime=image/*&amp;amp;refresh=31536000&amp;amp;resize_h=16" style="margin-right: 5px;" /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Party of Pollution&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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Weakening environmental regulations, part of the G.O.P. jobs plan, would do little to create jobs and would make us both poorer and sicker.&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;</description><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" height="72" url="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Zx8WCRgYBYo/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/K0kx2fS_Yao/s72-c-k-a/photo.jpg" width="72"/><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>It's bad enough to shoot yourself in the ...</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2011/10/its-bad-enough-to-shoot-yourself-in.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Sat, 22 Oct 2011 03:01:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-4875743851644857211</guid><description>&lt;div style="border: solid 1px #dfdfdf; color: #686868; font: 13px Arial;"&gt;
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&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Alfred Ingram shared a post with you on Google+.&lt;/span&gt; Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;"&gt;Learn more&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;
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It's bad enough to shoot yourself in the foot, but these laws may turn red state roosters into soprano singing capons. Instead of greeting economic mornings they look forward to dusks with unpicked crops rotting in their fields.&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/10/immigration-law?fsrc=nlw%7Cnewe%7C10-17-2011%7Cnew_on_the_economist"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="https://images2-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=https://s2.googleusercontent.com/s2/favicons?domain%3Dwww.economist.com&amp;amp;container=focus&amp;amp;gadget=a&amp;amp;rewriteMime=image/*&amp;amp;refresh=31536000&amp;amp;resize_h=16" style="margin-right: 5px;" /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;The tightening noose, the lightening wallet&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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ANOTHER month, another court, another plank of Alabama's controversial immigration law enjoined.&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;</description><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" height="72" url="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Zx8WCRgYBYo/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/K0kx2fS_Yao/s72-c-k-a/photo.jpg" width="72"/><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>*Remember when healthcare legislation was...</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2011/10/remember-when-healthcare-legislation.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:32:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-6054863374288945392</guid><description>&lt;div style="border: solid 1px #dfdfdf; color: #686868; font: 13px Arial;"&gt;
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&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Alfred Ingram shared a post with you on Google+.&lt;/span&gt; Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;"&gt;Learn more&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;b&gt;Remember when healthcare legislation was declared dead?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;div style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 4px;"&gt;
&lt;a href="https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/emlink?emrecipient=109528701776849959856&amp;amp;emid=CKCwg8ya5asCFcPM5godz3YAAA&amp;amp;path=%2F113486290072894990163%2Fposts%2FJRZDDZgqeSH%3Fgpinv%3DAGXbFGyk_dduAX0iPUnnZmWm2droI1WV4UBxFoCt06ygn4hhLkGXx_kMqM0ouVkRrCeaH1G-77d9pzGKMxFWidNY-Xf7Hf9esLGPbRZ6odIo9ZIAehSQC7E%26hl%3Den_US&amp;amp;dt=1318493379160" style="text-decoration: none;"&gt;More Jobs for Americans: Stand with President Obama to Continue the Fight for Jobs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ziy1SYTvLgI&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;fs=1&amp;amp;autoplay=1" style="text-decoration: none;"&gt;youtube.com&lt;/a&gt; - Stand with the President, join this fight now: http://my.barackobam&lt;wbr&gt;&lt;/wbr&gt;a.com/potusjobsvid  &lt;wbr&gt;&lt;/wbr&gt;This fight goes on.  Senate Republicans have blocked a critical jobs bill that would put Americans back to work right...&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;</description><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" height="72" url="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Zx8WCRgYBYo/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/K0kx2fS_Yao/s72-c-k-a/photo.jpg" width="72"/><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Enjoy</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2011/10/enjoy.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Sun, 2 Oct 2011 18:49:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-1621143340529732781</guid><description>&lt;div style="border: solid 1px #dfdfdf; color: #686868; font: 13px Arial;"&gt;
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&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Alfred Ingram shared a post with you on Google+.&lt;/span&gt; Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;"&gt;Learn more&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;
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Enjoy&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://skipallenpaints.com/2011/09/29/bristly-dabs-for-painter-12-and-backward-compatible-to-painter-ix/"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="https://images3-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=https://s2.googleusercontent.com/s2/favicons?domain%3Dskipallenpaints.com&amp;amp;container=focus&amp;amp;gadget=a&amp;amp;rewriteMime=image/*&amp;amp;refresh=31536000&amp;amp;resize_h=16" style="margin-right: 5px;" /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Bristly Dabs for Painter 12 and Backward Compatible to Painter&amp;nbsp;IX.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="padding-bottom: 10px;"&gt;
Hello Everyone,  I have just made a download page for my newest brush set, called Bristly Dabs.&amp;nbsp; Thanks to David Gell, Master of all things Painter, the sets are backward compatible to Painter I...&lt;/div&gt;
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</description><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" height="72" url="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Zx8WCRgYBYo/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/K0kx2fS_Yao/s72-c-k-a/photo.jpg" width="72"/><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Texas has spent years trying to steer money...</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2011/10/texas-has-spent-years-trying-to-steer.html</link><category>government</category><category>housing</category><category>insurance</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Sun, 2 Oct 2011 02:48:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-8361451512904951775</guid><description>&lt;div style="border: solid 1px #dfdfdf; color: #686868; font: 13px Arial;"&gt;
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&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Alfred Ingram shared a post with you on Google+.&lt;/span&gt; Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;"&gt;Learn more&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;
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Texas has spent years trying to steer money meant to repair hurricane damage housing of low income and disadvantaged owners. They've done the typical republican('t) dance of changing the rules, so people have to apply again and again, changining the disbursement formula, in an attempt to steer the funds to people who hadn't suffered damage. Now, relief is in the hands of a different agency. Another set of delays is sure to follow.&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/us/extending-the-miseries-from-hurricane-ike.html?nl=todaysheadlines&amp;amp;emc=tha23&amp;amp;pagewanted=all"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="https://images1-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=https://s2.googleusercontent.com/s2/favicons?domain%3Dwww.nytimes.com&amp;amp;container=focus&amp;amp;gadget=a&amp;amp;rewriteMime=image/*&amp;amp;refresh=31536000&amp;amp;resize_h=16" style="margin-right: 5px;" /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Extending the Miseries From Hurricane Ike&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="padding-bottom: 10px;"&gt;
Three years after the damage from Hurricane Ike, affected Texas homeowners are angry at a state bureaucracy that has paid out less than 10 percent of the $3.1 billion in federal aid it has received.&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td style="color: #636363; font: 11px Arial; line-height: 120%; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%;"&gt;You received this message because &lt;a href="https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?&amp;amp;emid=CLCu2eHAyasCFQue3AodC2wAAA&amp;amp;path=%2F113486290072894990163%3Fgpinv%3DAGXbFGwTbGnSOtO2BUlUs1F3DUXZP-C9KX_RwXuljUQU2hKMxigUsvq_s7dwC_lvfdw9feGkYU6XilbERUPqdUieH3mUP2PkvKoDvydTzh1RNcMOhNp1ZZQ%26hl%3Den_US" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;"&gt;Alfred Ingram&lt;/a&gt; shared it with conceptual1.voter@blogger.com. &lt;a href="https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?&amp;amp;emid=CLCu2eHAyasCFQue3AodC2wAAA&amp;amp;path=%2Fnonplus%2Femailsettings%3Fgpinv%3DAGXbFGwTbGnSOtO2BUlUs1F3DUXZP-C9KX_RwXuljUQU2hKMxigUsvq_s7dwC_lvfdw9feGkYU6XilbERUPqdUieH3mUP2PkvKoDvydTzh1RNcMOhNp1ZZQ%26est%3DADH5u8VMU_xhoM_sk-hYkN3ciYA6cMy70JAJP9USihDWoeQZh3c6OLlJWjwdgxrDynW8bzEUQFqkwtW2YXy1PKnsmp4IXPFPvvpWZO8Jm5X-Ab-wEAVJBnz4Uwa0UNGCl_ahz_uRWvUzGJkpuxLLD8SEA8g6aFZ-mA%26hl%3Den_US" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;"&gt;Unsubscribe&lt;/a&gt; from these emails.&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;img src="https://ssl.gstatic.com/s2/oz/images/notifications/logo/google-plus-6617a72bb36cc548861652780c9e6ff1.png" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
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</description><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" height="72" url="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Zx8WCRgYBYo/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/K0kx2fS_Yao/s72-c-k-a/photo.jpg" width="72"/><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Op-Ed Columnist - Hey, Small Spender - NYTimes.com</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/10/op-ed-columnist-hey-small-spender.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2010 02:20:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-5609249708270135478</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?ref=opinion"&gt;Op-Ed Columnist - Hey, Small Spender - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;blockquote&gt;"…the big government expansion everyone talks about never happened"&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?ref=opinion"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?ref=opinion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?ref=opinion"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;img src="http://pp2.s3.amazonaws.com/43849ff5a22a4c57/5e742422678c41fabe2dd9bb3ebdd971.jpg" alt="image" width="190" height="240" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Point of View Is Everything</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/10/point-of-view-is-everythinj.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Sat, 9 Oct 2010 09:35:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-934759777964694658</guid><description>&lt;img alt="image" border="0" height="320" src="http://pp2.s3.amazonaws.com/43849ff5a22a4c57/a91dfdc625c5430fa36c1bfbdf823540.jpg" width="320" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;She saw a mouse&lt;br /&gt;
with a fully functioning&lt;br /&gt;
human brain!&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img alt="image" border="0" height="188" src="http://pp2.s3.amazonaws.com/43849ff5a22a4c57/a325378968054d18b15befcba2e1a81a.jpg" width="267" /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;He saw O'Donnell&lt;br /&gt;
with a fully functioning&lt;br /&gt;
human mouth!&lt;/b&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Beachfront Property in the Middle of the Mojave ( and other scams)</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/08/beachfront-property-in-middle-of-mojave.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:50:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-593582273794164168</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/opinion/23krugman.html?ref=opinion"&gt;Op-Ed Columnist - Bush Tax Cuts - Now That’s Rich - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt;: "it’s about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience."


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/opinion/23krugman.html?ref=opinion</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>What Republicans Really Think</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-republicans-really-think.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:32:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-2586549579393348135</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16krugman.html?ref=opinion"&gt;Op-Ed Columnist - Redo That Voodoo - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;b&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;"$30 billion in aid to the unemployed is unaffordable, but 20 times that much in tax cuts for the rich doesn’t count."&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/b&gt;
“&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 15px; "&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 22px; font-size: 15px; "&gt; For a while, leading Republicans posed as stern foes of federal red ink. Two weeks ago, in the official G.O.P. response to President Obama’s weekly radio address, Senator Saxby Chambliss devoted his entire time to the evils of government debt, “one of the most dangerous threats confronting America today.” He went on, “At some point we have to say ‘enough is enough.’ ”&lt;/span&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;But this past Monday Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, was asked the obvious question: if deficits are so worrisome, what about the budgetary cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which the Obama administration wants to let expire but Republicans want to make permanent? What should replace $650 billion or more in lost revenue over the next decade?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;His answer was breathtaking: “You do need to offset the cost of increased spending. And that’s what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.” So $30 billion in aid to the unemployed is unaffordable, but 20 times that much in tax cuts for the rich doesn’t count.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;The next day, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, confirmed that Mr. Kyl was giving the official party line: “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; "&gt;Now there are many things one could call the Bush economy, an economy that, even before recession struck, was characterized by sluggish job growth and stagnant family incomes; “vibrant” isn’t one of them. But the real news here is the confirmation that Republicans remain committed to deep voodoo, the claim that cutting taxes actually increases revenues.&lt;/span&gt;”
‘’

&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16krugman.html?ref=opinion"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16krugman.html?ref=opinion&lt;/a&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>They Scream About Taxes, Force Taxpayers To Pay</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/06/they-scream-about-taxes-force-taxpayers.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:23:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-7701759280280565677</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/30regulate.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th"&gt;A Bank Fee Is Cut From Financial Overhaul Bill - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;b&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;"Senate Republicans who had supported an earlier version of the measure threatened to block final approval unless Democrats removed a proposed tax on big banks and hedge funds."
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 15px; "&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;Democrats expressed frustration, saying they were adjusting the bill to meet the demands of centrist Senate Republicans only to face stiff criticism from Republicans on the committee.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;“Frankly, I’m caught in the middle of an intra-Republican debate here,” said Representative &lt;a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/barney_frank/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Barney Frank" class="meta-per" style="color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: underline; "&gt;Barney Frank&lt;/a&gt;, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Financial Services Committee, who presided over the conference proceedings with Senator&lt;a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/christopher_j_dodd/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Christopher J. Dodd." class="meta-per" style="color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: underline; "&gt;Christopher J. Dodd&lt;/a&gt;, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the banking committee.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 15px; "&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;Heather Booth, director of Americans for Financial Reform, said she believed Mr. Brown’s reasons for opposing the bank fees missed the point of overhauling the regulatory system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;“Not passing this bill will cost taxpayers more,” Ms. Booth said. “It increases the risk in the economy over all.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;She said her organization believed the biggest banks — approximately 30 with assets of more than $50 billion that would be subject to the assessments — had fanned the opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "&gt;Senate Democrats need 60 votes to close debate on the conference report and move to a final vote. There are now 58 senators in the Democratic caucus, including two independents.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/30regulate.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/30regulate.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Republicans 0. Americans 219</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/03/republicans-0-americans-219.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:41:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-4594547782254223382</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/us/politics/23repubs.html?hp"&gt;Political Memo - Republicans Face Drawbacks of United
Stand on Health Bill - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt;:  &lt;div&gt;In their own words "&lt;b&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;“There is no downside for Republicans,” Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, said Monday in an interview. “Only for Americans.”&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;p&gt;But at the same time, many provisions of the bill that go into effect this year — like curbs on insurance companies denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, or the expansion of prescription drug coverage for the elderly — are broadly popular with the public. The more contentious ones, including the mandate for the uninsured to obtain coverage, do not take effect for years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And in a week when Democrats are celebrating the passage of a historic piece of legislation, Republicans find themselves again being portrayed as the party of no, associated with being on the losing side of an often acrid debate and failing to offer a persuasive alternative agenda.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/david_frum/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about David Frum" class="meta-per" style="color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: underline; "&gt;David Frum&lt;/a&gt;, a fellow at the &lt;a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_enterprise_institute_for_public_policy_research/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research." class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: underline; "&gt;American Enterprise Institute&lt;/a&gt;, the conservative research organization, said Republicans had tried to defeat the bill to undermine Mr. Obama politically, but in the process had given up a chance of influencing a huge bill. Mr. Frum said his party’s stance sowed doubts with the public about its ideas and leadership credentials, and ultimately failed in a way that expanded Mr. Obama’s power.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“The political imperative crowded out the policy imperative,” Mr. Frum said. “And the Republicans have now lost both.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“Politically, I get the ‘let’s trip up the other side, make them fail’ strategy,” he said. “But what’s more important, to win extra seats or to shape the most important piece of social legislation since the 1960s? It was a go-for-all-the-marbles approach. Unless they produced an absolute failure for Mr. Obama, there wasn’t going to be any political benefit.”&lt;/p&gt;Republicans also face the question of what happens if the health care bill does not create the cataclysm that they warned of during the many months of debate.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;b&gt;Closing out the floor debate on Sunday night, the House Republican leader, Representative &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_a_boehner/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about John A. Boehner." class="meta-per" style="color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: underline; "&gt;&lt;b&gt;John A. Boehner&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt; of Ohio, warned that the legislation would be “the last straw for the American people.” Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, proclaimed several hours earlier, “Freedom dies a little bit today.”&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;b&gt;…"&lt;p&gt;Remember. there's no downside for Republican'ts. Healthcare reform is only necessary for Americans. In their heart of hearts they don't see themselves as part of us. Americans exist to be frightened, bullied, manipulated and misled.  The logic is irrefutable. No downside for Republicans, only for Americans.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; white-space: pre; "&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/us/politics/23repubs.html?hp&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Are you represented by a Highway Hypocrite?</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/03/are-you-represented-by-highway.html</link><category>American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009</category><category>finance</category><category>government</category><category>honesty</category><category>hypocracy</category><category>legislation</category><category>politics</category><category>Republican</category><category>United States Congress</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Wed, 3 Mar 2010 02:26:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-661675882085406166</guid><description>&lt;p class="zemanta-img" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; float: right; display: block; width: 310px; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Official_seal_of_the_American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009.svg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Official_seal_of_the_American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009.svg/300px-Official_seal_of_the_American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009.svg.png" alt="The emblem of Recovery.gov, the official site ..." style="border:none;display:block" width="300" height="300" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span class="zemanta-img-attribution"&gt;Image via &lt;a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Official_seal_of_the_American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009.svg"&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="gmail_quote"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="gmail_quote"&gt;---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: &lt;b class="gmail_sendername"&gt;Jen O'Malley Dillon, Democrats.org&lt;/b&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="gmail_quote"&gt;&lt;span dir="ltr"&gt;mailto:democraticparty@democrats.org&lt;/span&gt;
Date: Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 6:14 PM
Subject: Are you represented by a Highway Hypocrite?




Are you represented in &lt;a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.house.gov/" title="United States Congress" rel="homepage"&gt;Congress&lt;/a&gt; by a Highway Hypocrite?

Highway Hypocrites voted against the &lt;a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009" title="American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" rel="wikipedia"&gt;Recovery Act&lt;/a&gt; and spent the last year attacking it -- while praising it in letters requesting funds and press releases touting projects in their districts.

We've identified 118 Republican senators and representatives guilty of highway hypocrisy. &lt;strong&gt;But we know there are more.&lt;/strong&gt;

&lt;a href="http://my.democrats.org/page/m/4052b033/5e9fa31/6013cf7e/74b96305/3212738094/VEsH/" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;Click here to find out if you're represented by a Highway Hypocrite -- and help us expose others.&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;fieldset class="zemanta-related"&gt;&lt;legend class="zemanta-related-title"&gt;Related articles by Zemanta&lt;/legend&gt;&lt;ul class="zemanta-article-ul"&gt;&lt;li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/02/200000-to-lose-unemployme_n_482289.html"&gt;200,000 To Lose Unemployment Benefits This Week&lt;/a&gt; (huffingtonpost.com)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"&gt;&lt;a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/24/flinn-stimulus-hypocricy/"&gt;Like His Friends In Congress, GOP House Candidate In Tennessee Also Guilty Of Stimulus Hypocrisy&lt;/a&gt; (thinkprogress.org)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"&gt;&lt;a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/23/santorum-stimulus-hypocrisy-credibility/"&gt;Santorum to GOP: Stimulus hypocrisy 'does undermine your credibility.'&lt;/a&gt; (thinkprogress.org)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/fieldset&gt;  &lt;div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top:10px;height:15px"&gt;&lt;a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://reblog.zemanta.com/zemified/163b2e1b-f1c0-4d4f-949c-61228e8b061d/" title="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]"&gt;&lt;img class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=163b2e1b-f1c0-4d4f-949c-61228e8b061d" alt="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]" style="border:none;float:right" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"&gt;&lt;script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>How to Spot a Deficit Peacock</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-to-spot-deficit-peacock.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:52:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-1797587969445122502</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/deficit_peacock.html"&gt;How to Spot a Deficit Peacock&lt;/a&gt; &lt;span&gt;By &lt;a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/experts/LindenMichael.html"&gt;&lt;span style="color:#990000;"&gt;Michael Linden&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="timestamp"&gt;January 20, 2010&lt;/span&gt;

&lt;strong&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Deficit hawks come in a variety of breeds. There are those who believe that the long-term deficits pose serious risks, but that short-term deficits are necessary and wise during a recession. There are those who believe that deficits are always risky and should be avoided at all costs. Both kinds of hawks are genuine in their concern over our nation’s finances and are sincerely committed to working toward a more sustainable federal budget.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;And then there is another species of deficit bird all together: the deficit peacock. Deficit peacocks like to preen and call attention to themselves, but are not sincerely interested in taking the difficult but necessary steps toward a balanced budget. Peacocks prefer scoring political points to solving problems.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
1. They never mention revenues.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. They offer easy answers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;3. They support policies that make the long-term deficit problem worse.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;4. They think our budget woes appeared suddenly in January 2009.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;p&gt;President Bush took office when the nation had a record budget surplus . Yet he turned that surplus into a record deficit after repeatedly cutting taxes while prosecuting two wars and enacting billions of dollars worth of new spending programs without paying for any of them. When President Obama took office in the Congressional Budget Office projected a budget deficit of &lt;a href="http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9957/01-07-Outlook.pdf"&gt;&lt;span style="color:#990000;"&gt;$1.2 trillion&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; for the year. The steep decline from record surplus to record deficit resulted in a nearly $3 trillion increase in publicly held debt, the largest debt expansion in American history.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The steep decline from record surplus to record deficit resulted in a nearly $3 trillion increase in publicly held debt, the largest debt expansion in American history.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;p&gt;President Obama inherited the least balanced balance sheet in 60 years, took office in the midst of the deepest, most dangerous recession since the Great Depression. A large budget deficit is both necessary and wise during a recession. The extra spending and reduced taxes that cause big budget deficits help counter the recessionary spiral and ease its negative effects. Unfortunately, two terms of fiscal lunacy left the country in a much poorer position from which to respond to economic conditions, and left President Obama with little fiscal room to maneuver.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/deficit_peacock.html"&gt;http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/deficit_peacock.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Payback Time - Party Gridlock in Washington Feeds Fear of a Debt Crisis - Series - NYTimes.com</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/02/payback-time-party-gridlock-in.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:19:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-388485907511519280</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/economy/17gridlock.html?th=&amp;amp;emc=th&amp;amp;pagewanted=all"&gt;Payback Time - Party Gridlock in Washington Feeds Fear of a Debt Crisis - Series - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt;

“After decades of warnings that budgetary profligacy, escalating health care costs and an aging population would lead to a day of fiscal reckoning, economists and the nation’s foreign creditors say that moment is approaching faster than expected, hastened by a deep &lt;a title="More articles about the recession." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"&gt;&lt;span style="color:#004276;"&gt;recession&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; that cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenues and higher spending for safety-net programs. &lt;p&gt;Yet rarely has the political system seemed more polarized and less able to solve big problems that involve trust, tough choices and little short-term gain. The main urgency for both parties seems to be about pinning blame on the other, before November’s elections, for deficits now averaging $1 trillion a year, the largest since World War II relative to the size of the economy.…&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The president is not giving up. On Thursday, administration officials say, he will sign an executive order establishing the 18-member National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. He also will name as co-chairmen &lt;a title="More articles about Alan K. Simpson." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/alan_k_simpson/index.html?inline=nyt-per"&gt;&lt;span style="color:#004276;"&gt;Alan K. Simpson&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, a former Republican Senate leader from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, a moderate Democrat from North Carolina who, as President &lt;a title="More articles about Bill Clinton." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per"&gt;&lt;span style="color:#004276;"&gt;Bill Clinton&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;’s White House chief of staff, brokered a 1997 balanced budget agreement with Congressional Republicans.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“There isn’t a single sitting member of Congress — not one — that doesn’t know exactly where we’re headed,” Mr. Simpson said in a telephone interview Tuesday just before word of his role got out. “And to use the politics of fear and division and hate on each other — we are at a point right now where it doesn’t make a damn whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican if you’ve forgotten you’re an American.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/economy/17gridlock.html?th=&amp;amp;emc=th&amp;amp;pagewanted=all"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/economy/17gridlock.html?th=&amp;amp;emc=th&amp;amp;pagewanted=all&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Op-Ed Columnist - Fiscal Scare Tactics - NYTimes.com</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/02/op-ed-columnist-fiscal-scare-tactics.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Fri, 5 Feb 2010 14:01:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-6864106122128555292</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/opinion/05krugman.html?ref=opinion"&gt;Op-Ed Columnist - Fiscal Scare Tactics - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt; &lt;p&gt;"The main difference between last summer, when we were mostly (and appropriately) taking deficits in stride, and the current sense of panic is that deficit fear-mongering has become a key part of Republican political strategy, doing double duty: it damages President Obama’s image even as it cripples his policy agenda. And if the hypocrisy is breathtaking — politicians who voted for budget-busting tax cuts posing as apostles of fiscal rectitude, politicians demonizing attempts to rein in Medicare costs one day (death panels!), then denouncing excessive government spending the next — well, what else is new?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The trouble, however, is that it’s apparently hard for many people to tell the difference between cynical posturing and serious economic argument. And that is having tragic consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the fact is that thanks to deficit hysteria, Washington now has its priorities all wrong: all the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there’s hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction — and millions of Americans will pay the price."&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So,
this choice
is clear,
begin to
function or
give in
to fear.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/opinion/05krugman.html?ref=opinion"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/opinion/05krugman.html?ref=opinion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Dodd Denounces Pace of Banking Overhaul - NYTimes.com</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/02/dodd-denounces-pace-of-banking-overhaul.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Fri, 5 Feb 2010 13:47:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-4318984794739735553</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/business/05regulate.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th"&gt;Dodd Denounces Pace of Banking Overhaul - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt; &lt;p&gt;"Mr. Dodd said the White House was “on the right track” with its new ideas but warned of difficulty ahead. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“The refusal of large financial firms to work constructively with Congress on this effort borders on insulting to the American people, who have lost so much in this crisis,” he said.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He added that the financial services industry had sent “an army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms the public demands.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only two days earlier, Mr. Dodd had sounded a different note when &lt;a title="More articles about Paul A. Volcker." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/paul_a_volcker/index.html?inline=nyt-per"&gt;&lt;span style="color:#004276;"&gt;Paul A. Volcker&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, the former &lt;a title="More articles about the Federal Reserve System." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_reserve_system/index.html?inline=nyt-org"&gt;&lt;span style="color:#004276;"&gt;Federal Reserve&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; chairman, testified on the two proposals he has championed. One would ban deposit-taking banks from proprietary trading — making market bets using their own money — and from owning hedge funds or &lt;a title="More articles about private equity." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/private_equity/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"&gt;&lt;span style="color:#004276;"&gt;private equity&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; funds. The other would limit industry consolidation by capping the market share of a wide range of bank liabilities, not just deposits."&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm far from sure that Senator Dodd isn't just as responsible for the slow pace of financial reform. To paraphrase Senato Durbin of Illinois, "Frankly, banks seem to own the Senate."&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Expect more delay, followed by bipartisan fingerpointing, with a generous helping of fear, uncertainty and doubt. If that doesn't work, expect outright lies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/business/05regulate.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/business/05regulate.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>The Mendacity of Nope</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/01/mendacity-of-nope.html</link><category>government</category><category>healthcare</category><category>Healthcare reform</category><category>insurance</category><category>law</category><category>legislation</category><category>Microscope</category><category>Tea Partiers</category><category>United States</category><category>United States Senate</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:49:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-8214487056013590580</guid><description>&lt;p class="zemanta-img"&gt;&lt;a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:111th_United_States_Senate_Structure.svg"&gt;&lt;img alt="Breakdown of political party representation in..." src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/111th_United_States_Senate_Structure.svg/300px-111th_United_States_Senate_Structure.svg.png" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span class="zemanta-img-attribution"&gt;Image via &lt;a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:111th_United_States_Senate_Structure.svg"&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;(And the Horse He Rode In On, Part 2)&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The majority of Americans &lt;a class="zem_olink" title="Gallup: 55% Want Obamacare Stopped" href="http://www.healthcarebs.com/2010/01/22/gallup-55-want-obamacare-stopped/"&gt;oppose&lt;/a&gt; the Senate Healthcare Reform bill! &lt;a class="zem_olink" title="So Is It Really Over?" href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/so_is_it_really_over.php"&gt;Really&lt;/a&gt;! &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But, When asked where they stand on &lt;a class="zem_olink" title="CBO: Health Reform Reduces Deficit by $777B/20yrs" href="http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/11/18/165242/43"&gt;what's in the bill&lt;/a&gt;, they support it, don't think it goes far enough. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So, how did we get here? Does it have anything to do with persistent, unending lies?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think so.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Death Panels that never were, tax increases that will never be, fines that cannot be assesed, cuts invisble under a tunneling electron microscope are coming. The &lt;a class="zem_olink" title="The Health Care Grassroots Game" href="http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/01/the_health_care_grassroots_gam.php"&gt;Republicans stir the dregs&lt;/a&gt; at the base of the tea cup, Tea Partiers become even more bitter. A new lie is added ever time things seem to be calming down and the main stream media covers the falsehoods as if they were indistinguishable from the facts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Afte all, the opposition wouldn't tell bald=faced lies for partisan gain? Would they? &lt;a class="zem_olink" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce celebrates its 'influence' over Massachusetts Senate race." href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/19/chamber-brown-influence/"&gt;Financial gain?&lt;/a&gt; Of course not, surrounded by parentheses, prefaced by another not! &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's proof positve that even pygmy elephants, moving as a herd can trample the most needed reform,just for the hell of it,&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div class="zemanta-pixie"&gt;
&lt;a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]" href="http://reblog.zemanta.com/zemified/89ab70d0-0a40-433f-8cb3-974b96308358/"&gt;&lt;img class="zemanta-pixie-img" alt="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]" src="http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=89ab70d0-0a40-433f-8cb3-974b96308358" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span class="zem-script more-related more-info pretty-attribution paragraph-reblog"&gt;&lt;script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>And the Horse Brown Rode in On. Part 1</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2010/01/and-horse-brown-rode-in-on-part-1.html</link><category>Conditions and Diseases</category><category>Healthcare reform</category><category>insurance</category><category>Medicine</category><category>politics</category><category>United States</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:47:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-7036418473079561404</guid><description>&lt;div class="zemanta-img" jquery1264005025236="3964"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sphygmomanometer.jpg" jquery1264005025236="3965"&gt;&lt;img alt="Conventional (mechanical) sphygmomanometer wit..." src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Sphygmomanometer.jpg/300px-Sphygmomanometer.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span class="zemanta-img-attribution"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;Image via &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sphygmomanometer.jpg"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div class="zemanta-img" jquery1264005025236="3964"&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
I am sick and tired. I've been uninsured and uninsurable for twenty-five years. The faintest hope of healthcare reform has, at times, been all that stood between pain and insanity. It is&amp;nbsp;the slim piton from which I've clung to life, like a climber clings to a rockface when all other anchors have failed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I deeply resent the glee the mainstream media seems to feel. Apparantly, they think this is entertainment, so they're covering it like a season of some contact sport, some kind of hybrid of football, debate, WWE and ultimate fighting.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I lost my savings. I don't even have the mrmory of what a`pain free life is like&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;But, I have a condition , which most people from, if treated in the first few years. Unfortunately, it took over ten years to get a diagnosis. Waking, it burns. Sleeping, my jaw muscles clench so tight that I often wake up wit broken teeth. What about a mouth guard? Remember no insurance. Did you know, in many places even the Medicaid eligible aren't covered&amp;nbsp;for dentistry? Where you are covered, you have to jump through hoops. Ever tried jumping through hoops when you're in so much pain tou ca;t see straight?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
People who are trying to kill reform, whatever their reasons, are in fact trying to kill me. Every day without reform shortens my life and diminishes the quality of the life I have remaining. Bad teeth become inflammatipn become heart disease. Causalgia, burning pain, sustained&amp;nbsp; long enough can chane low blood pressure to high as if you flipped a switch. Inadequetely treated, these will kill. Without reform, tratment is a matter of luck.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But when people dig pits&amp;nbsp;in the trail and&amp;nbsp;camoflage them after lining the sides with punji sticks. They're trying to guarantee bad luck. That/s assault at best. At worst it's murder. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Maybe, I should have title this "And the Elephant Brown Rode in On."&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="zemanta-pixie"&gt;
&lt;a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://reblog.zemanta.com/zemified/b92ce82f-e5dd-42a2-a2d8-2bae956e8e29/" title="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]"&gt;&lt;img alt="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=b92ce82f-e5dd-42a2-a2d8-2bae956e8e29" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span class="zem-script more-related more-info pretty-attribution paragraph-reblog"&gt;&lt;script defer="true" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" type="text/javascript"&gt;
&lt;/script&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>So do you still eat hot dogs?</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2009/12/so-do-you-still-eat-hot-dogs.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:13:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-7339345457299501999</guid><description>&lt;div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'&gt;&lt;p&gt;When I was much younger, I had the misfortune  of reading a document that specified how many rat hairs and other loathsome contaminents were allowed in a frankfurter. It was years before I was able to eat a hot dog again. the weird thing was that back then chicken wasn't allowed, but rat hair (and other leavings) below a certain amount were.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Watching Lieberman and Nelson during the course of these negotiations, brings back those memories and the disgust. Did they ban chicken while alowwing rat leavings? &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Will reconciled with the House Bill will it turn our stomachs?&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Will it save lives?&lt;/p&gt;in reference to: &lt;a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/health/policy/20care.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th'&gt;Negotiating to 60 Votes, Compromise by Compromise - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href='http://www.google.com/sidewiki/entry/conceptual/id/AzqraQbBS-Fkmk1VBBkWvhkKXXw'&gt;view on Google Sidewiki&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Recovery?</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2009/11/recovery.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:22:00 -0600</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-7521024221515243122</guid><description>&lt;div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'&gt;&lt;p&gt;In some places every other family suffers job loss. This seems to be the real tipping point on the path to every family in a neighborhood suffering. We started tolerating this inequality under Reagan. A generation now grown knows no other way to survive except to hope that spme of the value they produce will tridkle down from the advantaged people. Less and less does as time passes. Less and less will.&lt;/p&gt;in reference to: &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;"A recent survey for the policy institute found that one in four families had been hit by a job loss during the past year and 44 percent had suffered either the loss of a job or a reduction in wages or hours worked. Economic insecurity has spread like a debilitating virus through scores of millions of American families. What kind of recovery are we talking about if blue-collar workers, and men and women without college degrees, and large percentages of ethnic minorities and the young and the poor are not part of it? And how can any recovery be sustained if economic insecurity is a permanent feature of even middle-class life?"&lt;br/&gt;- &lt;a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/opinion/14herbert.html?_r=1&amp;amp;ref=opinion'&gt;Op-Ed Columnist - A Recovery for Some - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href='http://www.google.com/sidewiki/entry/conceptual/id/Y9MMEQGiJRlmfKByYDLTj5afEfc'&gt;view on Google Sidewiki&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Villains Hate Being called Villains</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2009/10/villains-hate-being-called-villains.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:07:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-6548897911719120891</guid><description>&lt;div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'&gt;&lt;p&gt;There shouldn't beany surprises here. All the insurace companies ever really supported was an expansion of their market. Even this is less an effort to derail reform, than a rationale for steply raising rates after reform's passage. They may even succeed in further weakining already weak cost sontrols.&lt;/p&gt;in reference to: &lt;a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/policy/13health.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th'&gt;Democrats Call Insurance Industry Report Flawed - NYTimes.com&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href='http://www.google.com/sidewiki/entry/conceptual/id/twUagdS6PloIed7n90JaipLRClk'&gt;view on Google Sidewiki&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Five Senators Vote Against Public Need</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-senators-vote-against-public-need.html</link><category>finance</category><category>government</category><category>healthcare</category><category>honesty</category><category>insurance</category><category>legislation</category><category>politics</category><category>taxes</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:28:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-3192662051417491871</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/health/policy/30health.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th"&gt;Five Senators Vote Against Public Need&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
"Besides Mr. Baucus, two Democrats, Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, voted against both public option proposals. Two other Democrats, Senators Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Bill Nelson of Florida, voted against the first amendment, but supported the second. &lt;br /&gt;
Mr. Carper said he liked Mr. Schumer’s proposal because it “would establish a level playing field” for competition between private insurers and the government plan. &lt;br /&gt;
The votes on Tuesday set the stage for a compromise under which the public plan could be offered in states where people could not find affordable private coverage, Mr. Carper said. He and Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, have proposed such a compromise."&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
Is fear what determines their votes? Right now the bill that came out of the Finance Committee could be titled the Insurance Industry Windfall Mandate because everyone is reqired to get insured, but insurance doesn't have to be affordable and the taxpayer will pay the difference in any case. &lt;br /&gt;
Where are the cost controls? Where is any pressure on the Insurance industry to lower their costs or even cut their overhead. Co-ops aren't going to do it because they are too small, by political intent. They're designed to look like an alternative without actually being one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/health/policy/30health.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/health/policy/30health.html?th&amp;amp;emc=th&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Joe Lies! (Obama Heckled by GOP During Speech to Congress)</title><link>http://perceptual.blogspot.com/2009/09/joe-lies-obama-heckled-by-gop-during.html</link><category>Barack</category><category>government</category><category>healthcare</category><category>honesty</category><category>insurance</category><category>legislation</category><category>politics</category><category>Presidency</category><category>President</category><category>video</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:34:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602207.post-120732394950103797</guid><description>&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;
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This isn't politics. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This isn't policy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This is the spouse that lost custody accusing the winner of child molestaation, while planning to kidnap the child and go into hiding.&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item></channel></rss>