Hey, it’s a relatively small thing, but I’ll take it.

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Ah, this great American healthcare system!
More than one-third of the U.S. population under the age of 65 went without health insurance for all or part of the last two years, a consumer group said on Thursday.
The nonprofit Families USA group used data from last month’s U.S. Census Bureau report that found 47 million Americans went [...]

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Olbermann last night:

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Interesting piece on the subprime mess:
Like an ex-mobster turning state’s witness, Das has turned his back on his old pals in the derivatives biz to warn anyone who will listen — mostly banks and hedge funds that pay him consulting fees — that the jig is up.
Rather than joining the crowd that blames the mess [...]

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Oh, Dan. I wish you’d opened your mouth while all this was happening:
Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company.
“Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot [...]

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This is going to be a disaster in so many ways:
Losses from sub-prime mortgages have far exceeded “even the most pessimistic estimates“, US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has said.
His comments to a US finance committee come two days after the Fed cut base interest rates to 4.75% from 5.25%.
The rate cut was made “to [...]

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Those Senate Democrats, still working to keep from stopping the war.
A Congress of “almosts” and might-have-beens…

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Steve Clemons has been writing about Cheney et al pushing for a war with Iran. Oddly enough, he says Bush has been opposing it, and mentions a possible scenario: that Cheney and his supporters will cook up an “accidental war” by trying to trigger an incident.
Go read.

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Gwinnett County, GA, May 25, 2004. Link here.

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Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is now the Democratic Party’s own Mitt Romney. He told gay activists he’d support same-sex marriage while he was running for governor, and now (oops!) he’s citing his Catholicism as the reason he can’t.
O’Malley, who has been dogged by rumors of infidelity, apparently has rediscovered his faith. How… convenient.
The gay community [...]

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I had the local Fox affiliate’s morning show on as I got ready for work this morning, and they made a brief mention of the Jena 6 rally in Louisiana today. They said participants were protesting “uneven” treatment by local police, saying it was racial.
“Uneven”? Yeah, I guess you could say that. There was [...]

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Every book you read…
International travelers concerned about being labeled a terrorist or drug runner by secret Homeland Security algorithms may want to be careful what books they read on the plane. Newly revealed records show the government is storing such information for years.
Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race [...]

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Chimpy’s holding a press conference. If you can, tune in - he’s clearly using an earpiece again.
UPDATE: Rude Pundit has it all.

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How very heartening it is to see some politicians still want to do the right thing:
The mayor of the nation’s eighth-largest city abruptly reversed his public opposition to same-sex marriage late Wednesday after revealing that his adult daughter is a lesbian.
Mayor Jerry Sanders signed a City Council resolution supporting a legal fight to overturn California’s [...]

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Paul Krugman’s sounding more like a Dirty Hippie than ever:
One of my pet peeves about political reporting is the fact that some of my journalistic colleagues seem to want to be in another business – namely, theater criticism. Instead of telling us what candidates are actually saying – and whether it’s true or false, sensible [...]

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Digby wonders why the Republicans are following Bush over the cliff, as it were.
I’m a Jungian - I’m not wondering. I see the capability for the very worst in people, and I think it’s pretty clear what happened: BushCo has been spying on their political opponents. I have no doubt that many of the Republicans [...]

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A perfect example of what I’m talking about:
Officers said they arrived to find Delafield in a wheelchair, armed with two knives and a hammer. Police said the woman was swinging the weapons at family members and police.
Within an hour of her call to 911, Delafield, a wheelchair-bound woman documented to have mental illness, was dead.
Family [...]

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This isn’t sounding so good, is it?
Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle [...]

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Don’t take your iPhone out of the country unless you’re rich.

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Dan Rather has filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS, claiming they threw him under the bus to placate the right wing.
Doesn’t he know how silly that is? Everyone knows the media is liberal!

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That was only important to Republicans (and Joe Lieberman) when it was about blowjobs, and not the writ of habeas corpus!
Why, oh why do the Republicans hate our Constitution?

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Reacting to the news that the Democrats are working to grant retroactive immunity to the companies who spied on us illegally, Glenn Greenwald asks if the legal principle really needs to be explained. (Glenn, if you would just stop trying to impose logic on an illogical system, I’ll bet those migraines would disappear!)
Granting retroactive immunity [...]

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Apparently Paul Krugman is a Dirty Hippie, too!

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Oy.

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Good news:
Wal-Mart, long criticized for its health care coverage, unveiled a broad plan yesterday that is intended to cut employee costs, expand coverage and offer workers thousands of cheap prescription drugs.
Starting Jan. 1, Wal-Mart’s insurance will look a lot like that offered by many other American companies, but with some twists that even longtime critics [...]

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Ah, that librul media!
FishbowlDC has learned that Washington Times Editorial Page Editor Tony Blankley is leaving the Washington Times. The paper is working on a story on Blankley’s departure, which will hit the Web later this evening.
>UPDATE: Blankley is joining the PR firm Edelman and the Heritage Foundation. His column will continue to run in [...]

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Boston Globe:
“Right now we think there’s a 40 percent probability that the US economy will be in recession in the next six to twelve months,” warned Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody’s Economy.com, a research and forecasting firm in West Chester, Pa.

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Pam Spaulding:
And in a story that has received little coverage outside NYC, a veteran of the NYPD says his son was tased by cops four times during a community barbecue for no apparent reason, and beat him 15 times with a nightstick and choked him. (NYDN):
Retired Lt. Alexander Lombard said his son, Alexander Lombard 3rd, [...]

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The Federal Reserve:
Wall Street had expected a cut of only a quarter percentage point, and the stock market soared on the announcement. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 335.97 points, or 2.51 percent, to 13,739.39. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 43.13, or 2.92 percent, to 1519.78.
“I think they’re trying to shock [...]

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Via Matt Stoller at Open Left:
This legislation gives reasonable deployment breaks to soldiers so the military doesn’t break, and it has bipartisan support. Last time we got 56 votes for this, and with Tim Johnson it’s 57. We only need three more to break with the Republicans to get this to pass. [...]

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