A few capitulations ago — honestly, we’ve lost track — the question on the table was whether Obamacare, with three legs lopped off, still had a leg to stand on: Whether the final bill, awful as it was, was still better than the status quo.

Yes, we ultimately — and very unhappily — decided. Although we were likely to be among the uninsured folks screwed over by “reform”, we were convinced by arguments saying the bill would still help millions of Americans. We were willing to take one for the team, as long as the team could still put some points on the board.

The Grand Tax Compromise raises a similar question — although this time, we’ll personally benefit if the appeasement succeeds.

Problem is, many others won’t. Many, many others.

Read more »

Damn, that was fast. We should have programming ready for something like this.

Is Bernie Sanders still talking? [via StarterWife]

Photo: Steve Lambert

While you’re enjoying the filibuster, a look back at a recent Bernie Sanders claim:

“Mr. President, in the year 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23.5 percent of all income,” Sanders said. “The top 1 percent earned 23.5 percent of all income — more than the entire bottom 50 percent. That is apparently not enough. The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent has nearly tripled since the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, the top 1 percent earned about 8 percent of all income. In the 1980s, that figure jumped to 14 percent. In the late 1990s, that 1 percent earned about 19 percent.”

And the Truth-o-Meter scores it… True.

Bernie Sanders, in viral speech, says top 1 percent earn more than 23 percent of U.S. income [PolitiFact, via Gen JC Christian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmlzklHPgNM

So we had a clever premise in mind — “Suspicious Activities at Walmart” — but as we sat down to compose a list of hilarious! entries, we encountered an Insurmountable Problem:

We’ve only been to a Walmart once in our life.

And really, Greeter gags will only get you so far.

Homeland Security deploys video to Walmarts [Salon/early-warning credit to Jamie Sommers]

Prince’s limo paintballed on way to Palladium! 20,000 students and activists lay siege to Westminster!

This was the terrifying moment that a mob of anarchists attacked Prince Charles and Camilla’s car outside the London Palladium tonight.

The couple were due to attend the Royal Variety Performance, which was taking place very close to the epicentre of a day of violent protest in Parliament Square, when it was swarmed by people supposedly protesting against the rise in student tuition fees.

Protesters had thrown paintbombs at police throughout a day of protests and the burgundy 1977 Rolls Royce Phantom VI was hit by an explosion of white paint on Prince Charles’s side of the car. A window was smashed, two rear panels were dented and the aerial was broken.

Seriously: A tuition increase? While we can’t condone mob violence or desecrating a Rolls, we have to acknowledge that the American public has become a bunch of pansies after decades of oppression by Our Nation’s Plutocrats.

Terrifying moment Charles and Camilla were surrounded by a baying mob and their car attacked in tuition fees riot [Daily Mail UK]

“The Daily Beast has learned exclusively that Sarah Palin is planning her first real foreign trip — a move that could burnish her foreign policy credentials in advance of a 2012 presidential run.”