dean

Congratulations, Mekong. Hopefully, you meant to say you were able to salvage and resurrect your life, and not just your career.

It sounds like the purchase of the battleship was more to "show" China's neighbors that soon China will be a power comparable to the U.S. In other words, mainly intimidation. It will be interesting to see if the U.S. strategy of playing China off of its neighbors in Asia and southeast Asia works. Hopefully, it will work as well as when the U.S. played off the distrust that both China and the Soviet Union had for each other.

The carrier that China has was bought from a former Soviet satellite and re-fitted with a Chinese engine. That's a long way from building up their arsenal with Chinese built battleships.

Is he a Free Mason?

Romney promised to keep the provision that prohibits insurance companies from not accepting clients that have pre existing conditions, so long as the client has had no interruptions in carrying insurance. That's big of him.

Clint Eastwood had a good line about lawyers as politicians in his ad libed "speech" at the Republican convention. It was a series of one liners and a little strange (carrying on a conversation with an imaginary President Obama, who tells both Romney and Eastwood to perform a sexual act on themselves) and probably didn't win Romney any votes but was definitely a change of pace from the rest of the scripted Republican Convention. I wonder who the Democrats will get for their convention, maybe Warren Beatty?

Since he is joined at the hip with Eric Cantor, whom I despise for his "my way or nothing" approach to running the House (which includes shutting down government if he doesn't get his way), I wouldn't trust anything Ryan says without checking it out.

I very rarely vote a straight ticket, although I admit I'll vote Democratic for my U.S. House representative and for Governor. I guess that all of those Republicans, urged on by Rush Limbaugh, that switched party affiliation to vote for Hillary in the 2008 primaries, gave me the idea. If you knew Kansas politics, you would know that it is almost always the winner of the Republican primary that wins in November. Since about 1/3 of the electorate is independent,they are excluded from voting in either primary. In any case, rest assured that Kansas Republicans will not lose any elections because of my vote.By the way, I listen to NPR 4-5 hours on a typical weekday. It beats most sports talk. Occasionally, just for a different perspective, I listen to Pacifica.

You occasionally learn something new on NPR that you wouldn't associate with Public Radio and its higher class programming. In reporting on the oil boom going on in North Dakota and the lack of housing for the new workers, it seems that the new workers aren't making any friends among the long time residents. They have been banned from using the Community center's showers because, among other things, they clean their dirty underwear while in the shower. Their used to be a voluntary program for the youth of North Dakota to clean the litter from the highways. It seems that many of the new workers are leaving "trucker bombs" along the highway, so the voluntary litter program was ended. What's next for NPR? A five part report on which Olympic swimmers pee in the pool during practice?

There must be some sort of requirement for conservative Republicans to have worked at Pizza Hut while going to college. My Representative, Kevin Yoder, traveled the same path as Ryan with Pizza Hut but was never behind the wheels of a Weinermobile. Its a good thing that I registered as a Republican last year, after being a life long Democrat. I can now screw up their primaries and then vote for the Democrat in the general election.

Even Ronald Reagan today would beat any Democrat for elected office in Kansas. I believe that Kansas is the most Republican state. We have a Governor, Sam Brownback, that was elected 2 years ago and since then has pushed his agenda of privatizing many government agencies, like medicaid and severely cutting back any education subsidies. He hasn't been able to do much yet, because the Kansas Senate had a majority of moderate Republicans. As of last night, Brownback got enough of his conservative, religious candidates elected to control both the executive and legislative branches in the state. He will now turn his attention to the judicial, to make sure what he gets passed isn't overturned. It makes me want to move across the state line in Kansas City into Missouri.

I didn't quite follow the logic. Wouldn't Obama have had to give up his U.S. citizenship to have to "get it back?" Is this guy saying that Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and step dad, took Indonesia citizenship and renounced his U.S. citizenship, came back to the U.S as a foreign student and wasn't a U.S. citizen, at least while attending Columbia and Harvard?

Unless I'm mistaken, Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation, which includes what it spends on its students. I doubt if the lawmakers there are talking about increasing the amount spent on education, just re-apportioning the current amount that is spent. The best thing that a parent in Mississippi could do for the academic welfare of their child would be to move to another state. I would agree that television is used to much to pacify kids. My 4 year old cried when he thought I was getting rid of cable, including the Cartoon Network. Yes, I do take him to the library at least once a month to check out books to read. He and his mother go back to Thailand next summer and that will be the time to get rid of all cable in the house.

Concerning Steve's remark that healthcare could have waited until Obama's second term, I don't think that there ever would be a good time to push for it. During good times, when more people have jobs that offer health insurance (and more money, overall), healthcare legislation would be a hard sell. However, in 2009, during the depths of the recession, with unemployment high and money very tight, and having majorities in both houses of Congress, I think that the time was perfect politically to get health care legislation done. I seriously doubt if Obama thought it would take a year to do it. I don't think Republicans would have supported a bipartisan plan to stimulate the economy. Their plan would be to continue extremely low tax rates and fast track things like the Keystone pipeline (which I would have done) and basically, get government off the backs of small business owners (big business has lawyers and lobbyists to do that for them). I don't know how much the two sides (Obama and the Republicans) would have been able to compromise (particularly with Eric Cantor "representing" the Tea Party) but working on creating jobs and passing a health care law in a 2 year period should not be mutually exclusive.

When it comes to companies involved in the health care business, its all about how much money they can get out of the insurance companies and, ultimately, the government. I think that my thai step daughter has gotten at least 6 bills for her 2.5 hour stay in an emergency room, during which she got an injection of morphine, a saline drip, some technical exam which proved she was not pregnant and two visits of 5 minutes a piece by a Doctor. All of this cost a measly $10,000. As of now, the hospital has a financial branch that, in coordination with the patient, looks for government money to pay the bill. Failing that, at some point, they will turn her over to collections. If they can get the amount down to a reasonable amount, under $5,000, I will help her to pay it off. If not, I will advise her to see a bankruptcy attorney and see what her options are. She really has no assets, so there is nothing that they could take. I know that, if I were in her situation, I'd be extremely pissed, as it appears that at least $4-5,000 is either padding or things that they did to cover their ass in case of a lawsuit.

Actually, the Republicans had since at least 1994, when the Republicans were swept into majority in Congress, or 1993, when Hillarycare went down in flames. Thats 14 years (from 1994-2008) and the most that they could do was increase the money paid for drugs bought by the elderly. The Republicans are great at mobilizing support in oppostion to changes to healthcare but haven't supported any major changes to healthcare that would either help those with no insurance or help to decrease the rise in healthcare costs. I'm uninsured (and have been for almost 40 years)and can easily pay for any healthcare/dental work in other countries, like Thailand and Mexico, out of pocket. I would have to be practically near death to get me to see a doctor/go to a hospital, in the U.S (because of the costs). That doesn't even cover the business costs in having one's health insurance tied to one's job (or the inequality in the cost of the insurance for various segments of society), and having to be tied to a job just because you have a pre existing condition (or not being able to get insurance except at astronomical prices). The answer to cutting the costs of healthcare are not as simple as having it be 100% free market (although I would like to see a company like Walmart as a major health player) or 100% government controlled. Its taking well thought out ideas and trying them. If they don't work, try something else until progress is made. Not exactly rocket science but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for government and special interests to make affordable health care a priory.

The author of the WSJ article has been making the rounds today on various shows. I saw him on the "Kudrow Report" on CNBC tonight. It tends to make one think that he wrote the article for its shock value and not overly concerned with both sides of the story. I really don't even think that the November elections will end the debate. The major flaw in Obamacare was waiting more than 4 years in implementing the law. Too much uncertainty keeps employers from hiring and the stock market on a roller coaster. Which means that this crap will continue until early 2014, when people will see how Obamacare insures most of the uninsured, removes the restrictions on those with pre existing conditions and doesn't create a "death board" for the elderly. Right now, I wish I was Adam Sandler with one of those universal remote controls and I could fast forward to early 2014.

I'll bet it doesn't come close to the number of draft age men who went to Canada during the Vietnam War.

I doubt if Congress will force ex-pats to buy health insurance. If you can give me a level playing field, where insurance policies are available to all Americans for the same, affordable price, I'd be all for business run health insurance. We haven't had that since Nixon approved HMO's (which is how long we haven't had affordable health insurance). If you can show me how an idealized health insurance law can get through Congress in a 2 year term and not be butchered by Republicans and special interests, I'll vote for you in November. Since you can't, I'll stick with the imperfect law that we have now and hope that some members of Congress will take it on themselves to correct the parts of the law that will be problematic.

The worst SC justice; http://xenohistorian.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/the-worst-supreme-court-justice/

Good point about Roberts. He certainly isn't as politically dumb as the other conservatives on the Court. He has now given the majority opinion on the most important case in the last 40 years, and he limited the powers of Congress via the commerce clause. He may become the most influential Chief Justice since Earl Warren.

Its certainly a political decision but not judicial legislation. Brown Vs. Board was judicial legislation because it mandated all sorts of federal/state programs be enacted. This just declares that the Democrats won, just like Bush Vs.Gore declared that the Republicans won.

It was a 5-4 decision. Obamacare is upheld in its entirety. The individual mandate can stay, not under the commerce clause but through the taxation laws of Congress. :elephant: :elephant: :elephant: :elephant: :elephant: :elephant: :elephant: :elephant: :elephant: :elephant: :elephant:

Individual mandate may be uphead under the taxation clause of Congress (not commerce)