Obama is a true-believer in the “strong medicine” austerity approach, so, perversely, he’ll only be spurred on by all those petitions that are dropped in his lap. Never mind that austerity has never worked; never mind that guys like Bill Black have totally debunked this “strong medicine” austerity crap. His plutocrat masters tell him that this is what is needed, that this is what is good for the country (read: themselves). The screams from the masses will tell him he’s on the right track. So he will persist. People need to understand this; that this isn’t a battle between the Left and the Right, between Democrats and Republicans, that this is not forced on him by the mean nasty GOP. It’s all-out class warfare, and Obama is not on our side (please; Geithner? Lew? He chose those people, not the GOP). Until we get that, the haves will have their way.

They stand for staying in power, without actually having to displease their oligarchic masters. They do this by relying on folks like you to blame the Republicans, who, while truly dastardly, are useful to the Democrats in keeping you from seeing the man behind the curtain. Stop it. From now on, call the Democrats out. They could make things happen. If they want to. They don’t.

These are what I call “punch list progressives.” They have a list; items get checked, they move on (Ha!). Doesn’t matter that the item in question is Kabuki or real or anywhere in between. I just has to sound like progress. HCR? Most important legislation since the Civil Rights Act! check. The President appoints a commission? Yayyyy! 3 cheers for Teh Prezident! Check. Next item. Then when you complain to them that this president has done nothing for the people, they pull out their punch list and say “Look! He’s accomplished a lot!” When you point out that this president favors austerity in a time of recession, or is killing Americans without due process, they redefine words and quibble about the meaning of “due-process”, “cuts” and “austerity” (Chained CPI, etc.)

I don’t understand these people at all. What do they get out of it, other than look craven, shallow, and partisan? All they appear interested in is feeling the faint warm glow of being sorta-kinda-near power. For this president and his supporters, Matthew 7:16 comes in handy: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”

Nancy Lanza is in no position to receive such penalties

This is not the point. The thinking would be that the penalties would presumably be a deterrent, which she may have heeded while still alive, preventing the tragedy (and her own death).

you wouldn’t want to take the logical step of assuming that everyone with a certain illness is a danger

You don’t need to do this to give people the medical care they need. This would be available to everyone, and would be a boon to parents of troubled individuals, who shouldn’t have to face this burden alone, as is now the case for most of us who can’t afford much more than rent and food.

Ultimately I don’t think this is a gun problem. Guns greatly exacerbate the problem, to be sure. But we have a culture where violence is glorified (and is the basis of our foreign policy), and social solidarity is vilified. Mix in desperate times and you’ve got a real problem. Our friends north of the border also have easy access to guns, but have one fifth of our gun homicide rate. Why would be a good question. My guess is that a more socially cohesive society with stronger social safety nets has a lot to do with this.

We have a culture that lives the myth of redemptive violence. We worship the military. We watch shows like “24″ and go to movies like “Zero Dark Thirty.” Our morning cartoon shows routinely depict superheroes saving the world with violence. But then we recoil at horrors like the Newton massacre, and ask “why”, even as we kill children in Pakistan with our drones. We have seriously lost our way. If we can’t see that when 5-year-olds get gunned down, we will never see it.

Duh. No. How could we possibly expect a decision in the public interest, and not in Rice’s interest? This is more than a whiff of conflict of interest. It stinks on ice.

“We adhere to federal and state laws and regulations that protect the privacy of our employees…” Always those weasel words. Translation: “We protect the privacy of our employees while we’re screwing them, so we can’t talk about how we’re screwing them.”

I’m also just a little surprised that the governments of Spain, Portugal, etc. don’t go the Iceland route. Why is the Spanish government on the hook to rescue their banks? These are for the most part private banks, and if they go down it would hurt German creditors. Seems like a leverage point to me.

Here, let me fix that headline for you: “IMF Rejects Own Research, Backs Fiscally Waterboarding Portugal.” (h/t Yanis Varoufakis)

Also very disappointed. Refs should withdraw that concession as part of tightening the screws on owners. It’s clear the owners don’t have an answer in the scabs.

How is this inconsistent? Does the fact that LeBron is well paid mean he can’t call for referees to be well paid? I don’t get it.

I don’t have TV, so I can’t tune out like John Cole (bravo to him btw). But I do have NFL Game Rewind, and I will cancel my subscription and demand my money back. We’ll see how that goes. This is not just a protest either. I found several games I tried to watch to be unwatchable because of the nonsense going on, with players out of control, coaches constantly invading the field, bad calls being made left-right-and-center.

Yes. This “waste” == Profits for someone. It is going to be extremely difficult to eradicate a $750 Billion/year business model. It was galling to listen to Big Pharma and the medical and insurance industries piously agreeing during the debate on ACA that we all need to lower costs, while fighting tooth and nail to keep their profits intact. Any real progress will have to be made without them and imposed on them, I’m afraid.

Why, you pirate, you! We need ACTA to ensure that free-thinkers like you are boxed in and must watch only the approved dreck intellectual property!

On the Euro 2012 ESPN commentary, this is right on. Fortunately I didn’t have to stream the BBC to avoid ESPN’s English language commentary (only Taylor Twellman was worth listening to). I was able to watch the games on ESPN Deportes (streaming on watchespn.com), and believe me the Spanish language commentators and analysts were vastly superior. Funny, intelligent, and informative, these guys clearly love and enjoy the game. And best of all, they never treated me like an ignorant twit.

No. The way the Right has gotten their absurd agenda passed is by repeating over and over and over what they want you to hear and to start believing: unions are bad, government is bad, regulations cost jobs, Welfare queens drive Cadillacs, “Liberal!”, this is a conservative/Christian nation, etc. We give this up for lost, and it will be lost. But if we keep calling out those who think it is acceptable for someone to buy a military assault weapon with a 100-round magazine, then maybe we’ll shift the terms of the debate a bit.

I honestly don’t see what their beef is. The Kenyan Usurper has hurt them not one itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny bit. Not one of his policies can be called “socialist” without seriously abusing the language. Not a single one of his policies has impacted the huge wealth of these entitled buffoons. Quite the contrary. Meanwhile we “nail-ladies” and other mendicants have been lied to and screwed left right and center every time Obama needs to please “The Center.” I don’t see how we could be screwed worse under Mittens. And that is not an endorsement of Romney, it is a condemnation of the utter cravenness and soullessness of Obama and his Democratic Party, who, rather than delivering us Change We Can Believe In, have done Bush II proud.

This is not all that shocking to me. The mandate was something the industry wanted, and what business wants in this country, business generally gets. A government mandate to buy your product? What industry wouldn’t mind that? The only question in my mind, with this ideological court, was whether old-fashioned business friendly conservatism would prevail, or the newer uglier tea-party version. It was close, but we have our answer. For now.