"The Liberal Democrats, a far-right nationalist party that holds seats in the State Duma" FP

Wonderful Book: "Great American Hypocrites" by Glenn Greenwald. It exposes the discrepancy between GOP talk and reality. A similar book could be written about the Democrats, but it would be less extreme, since the Democrats are guilty of the same fault to a lesser degree. It is also a vocal critique of the establishment / mainstream media for their preference to depict and comment on the meaningless realm of politics, at the expense of treatment of policy, which actually is important.

Here is an interesting editorial from Frank Rich. He describes: 1) How Republicans have "condemned" in very uncertain terms the deliberate plane crash at the IRA building, which differs from the OK City bombing only in the number of victims. 2) The estrangement between the Republican Party and the Teabagger movement, which is essentially libertarian. 3) The disturbingly violent anti-government comments that are increasingly common in GOP and Teabagger discourse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28rich.html

A thought recently occurred to me: Sarah Palin is the logical conclusion of George W. Bush. She is everything he is, but more so.

The increasingly beneficial role of religious organizations in 3rd world relief and development. The flipside is adoption farce in Haiti. The woman who organized it had no experience with adoption, let alone international adoption, and she was being sued for back wages from former employees. The road to hell is more quickly paved with the good intentions of idiots.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html

Don't thank me. Thank the knife.

HC: Budget reconciliation process was used to pass both of the Bush tax cuts, at a total cost of $1.8 billion, about twice the cost of Obama's health care reform. Despite what the GOP says, budget reconciliation is a commonly used political tool. Republican "proposals" do nothing to remedy the problem of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. This is not a problem in countries that have national health care, since the risk pool is the entire population. The private sector cannot provide good health care as we have come to expect it as a basic right of American citizenship. Social Security, of course, and Medicare are not mentioned in the Constitution, but today we regard those as basic rights of citizenship. That's what entitlements are: what we, as citizens, have a right to expect from the government. We do not have the right to a fancy car or an expensive house, but we should not worry about how we can afford to take care of our health.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/opinion/26krugman.html

Malpractice insurance is NOT a significant factor in the cost of health care. The insurance is high, but malpractice is inherent in practicing medicine. It is part of the cost of doing business. For every instance of someone who receives what is perceived as excessive compensation for malpractice, there are probably a dozen instances of people who did not sue in the first place, though the could deservedly have done so. The fundamental fact is that most malpractice settlements are rewarded to people who have been injured by malpractice.
http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/02/25/summitry

Report card for health care reform summit: Dick Durban does the best, Obama very high. A- for Paul Ryan (see yesterday's post), who apparently defended well his bad proposal. At least he has one.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/02/25/healthcare_summit_slide_show/slideshow.html

Does it sound like I'm ordering a pizza?

HC: Procedural hypocrisy of Democrats vs. policy hypocrisy of Republicans:
http://www.slate.com/id/2245893/

Is NATO relevant in the post-Soviet world? Do we need NATO in Afghanistan more to show that NATO is still relevant than for any other reason?
http://www.slate.com/id/2245900/

HC: Paul Ryan (R-WI) is as much a moron as Paul Broun (R-GA). Ryan wants to replace Medicare with vouchers to buy health care, knowing that the value of the vouchers will be less in time than Medicare benefits would be. Are the Republicans trying to defend Medicare from Obama, or replace it with vouchers? Are they trying to have their political cake and eat it, too?
http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/02/24/medicare