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24 May 2011 14:59

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Politics: Rep. Rob Woodall uninterested in woman’s health care woes

  • Hear yourself, ma’am. Hear yourself. You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, ‘When do I decide I’m going to take care of me?
  • Rep. Rob Woodall • Responding to a constituent who opposes Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare as a guaranteed program, on the basis that her employer doesn’t offer medical benefits to retirees. Woodall’s response gets credit for exactly one thing, which is that it would seem to be an honest answer. However, that honesty underscores the callous hand-washing inherent to the Ryan plan that’s made it such a lightning rod for criticism. The basic premise of what Woodall and this constituent said to each other was “I can’t get medical coverage in this scenario,” to which Woodall essentially replied, “well, sorry, not my job.” This is, it seems to us, not hyperbolic, but the core subtext of Paul Ryan’s plan, and the incredibly callous nature of it is what’s handed the Democrats one of their signature, winning issues back to them on a shiny silver platter. source

14 Apr 2011 14:15

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Politics: Deficit commission heads endorse Obama’s plan

  • yesterday The budget plan pitched by the President Obama in his big speech was very similar to the proposal advanced by his bipartisan deficit reduction commission, under Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson.
  • today Bowles and Simpson met with the President earlier today, and after their meeting, the dynamic duo endorsed his twelve-year, $4 trillion reduction plan (their plan called for $4 trillion over just ten years). source

12 Jun 2010 13:13

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Biz, U.S.: U.S. to BP: Please come up with a plan or we’ll kick your ass

  • 48 hours or the Gulf of Mexico gets it (oh wait, too late) source

13 Apr 2010 11:06

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Tech: Twitter’s big revenue model: Advertising. Who didn’t expect that?

  • now Twitter will let companies buy ad tweets for certain keywords on searches. Well, that’s obvious.
  • later Twitter will show relevant promoted posts in the stream of tweets. That’s even moreso. source

27 Jan 2010 08:38

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Biz, U.S.: Poll: Perception says the stimulus is like an inverted Robin Hood

  • 51% think it’s helped bankers and investors
  • 40% think it’s helped the executives
  • 33% think it’s helped the low-income
  • 25% think it’s helped the middle class source

09 Dec 2009 00:56

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U.S.: Obama’s plan for doling out more jobs: Spend some more!

  • $100
    billion
    to help with additional benefits, food stamps and health insurance for the unemployed
  • $70
    billion
    to create more jobs, except this time with more sprinkles and frosting, we think source

02 Dec 2009 10:34

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02 Dec 2009 10:05

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U.S.: The Senate is in the middle of debating Obama’s Afghan plan

  • Success is the real exit strategy, and when conditions on the ground have decisively begun to change for the better. That is when our troops should start to return home with honor, not one minute longer, not one minute sooner, and certainly not on some arbitrary date in July 2011.
  • John McCain • Discussing the troop increase Obama has planned as well as the pullout. The Senate hearings on the event are currently going on, and The New York Times has a pretty thorough liveblog about what may be the moment that defines Obama’s diplomatic legacy. source

18 Nov 2009 21:11

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U.S.: Recovery.org is looking a little inflated nowadays

  • Tons of stimulus aid went to nonexistent districts, the site says. Question: Do you know where Arizona’s 86th district is? Well, (surprise!) it doesn’t exist – for the record, Arizona only has eight districts. It got a lot of stimulus money, though, according to Recovery.org. The government had a lot of explaining to do about the errors, but let’s just say they’re getting fixed. And Joe Biden was stuck trying to explain the errors on “The Daily Show” last night. (He tried really hard to downplay the bad press.) source

04 Nov 2009 20:48

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Politics: Lindsey Graham: Obama didn’t do the hard stuff to close Gitmo

  • And let me just say, the president, quite frankly, has screwed this up. You know, he announces on the first day of his being inaugurated that he’s going to close Guantanamo Bay and he didn’t do the hard stuff.
  • South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham • Describing his disappointment with the Obama administration’s handling of the Guantanamo Bay closing, noting the lack of prosecution of terrorism suspects which would make a closing possible. Graham, by the way, supported Obama’s plan. In response, the White House says the Bush administration left them with a lot of work to do. More than 200 cases for 200 inmates need to be sorted out. • source