There are two strongly distinctive aspects of health care. One is that you don't know when or whether you'll need care -- but if you do, the care can be extremely expensive. The big bucks are in triple coronary bypass surgery, not routine visits to the doctor's office; and very, very few people can afford to pay major medical costs out of pocket.

This tells you right away that health care can't be sold like bread. It must be largely paid for by some kind of insurance. And this in turn means that someone other than the patient ends up making decisions about what to buy. Consumer choice is nonsense when it comes to health care. And you can't just trust insurance companies either -- they're not in business for their health, or yours.

Krugman wrote this on his blog because he was getting a lot of email and comments claiming that we needed a free-market solution.

Palin arrived about 12:15 p.m. Sunday at Pioneer Park in downtown Fairbanks, where thousands gathered for the picnic and her resignation speech.
Among those present was Donna Michaels, 57, of Fairbanks, who wore a red T-shirt that said: "Palintologist."
The T-shirt defined a Palintologist as "someone who studies Palin and shares her conservative values, Maverick attitude and American style."

[snip]

"She's really not stepping down. She's stepping up to do something bigger and better," said Michaels, who attended the picnic with her daughter and two granddaughters, one of whom who wore Sarah Palin-style eyeglasses.[emphasis added]

So many smart lawyers, and none of them had a thought about the charge of disorderly conduct in Massachusetts?

And no, I didn't miss BigTentDemocrat's low-concept, no-citations rant about the cops, and I didn't miss Jonathan Turley's excellent article about Crowley's cause for a defamation action against Gates, with its recollection of the successful suit for defamation against Al Sharpton by assistant D.A. Steven A. Pagones: $345,000.

White House officials are embracing a plan to tax "gold-plated, Cadillac" insurance policies, giving momentum to an idea that is receiving bipartisan consideration on Capitol Hill.

"A premium charge on top of the most expensive packages is one of the ways to ensure that there's a lid on health-care costs," a top administration official told POLITICO. "The president believes this is an intriguing idea."

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday on Bloomberg TV that he is "taking an intense look at it."

And top House leadership official told POLITICO that the plan is "something we can live with."

But here's the interesting part (from an industry official, but if true, could have political implications):

A top industry official responded that the plan is a tax on employee benefits in an indirect guise.

"It's the same tax they're trying to avoid," the official said. "This would be like having a luxury-car tax where you charge BMW rather than the individual. The individual ultimately will be responsible for the payment. It's a tax on fringe benefits."

The official said the tax could be unfair to employees in states with high-cost insurance, including New York, California, Florida, Texas, Illinois and Michigan.

CSM headline seems about right to me:

"You look at the governing structure of the New York [Federal Reserve], it was run by the very banks that got the money. This is a Ponzi scheme, an inside job. It is outrageous, it is time for Congress to say enough of this. And to give them more power now is crazy.

[snip]

Spitzer resigned as governor of New York in March, 2008, after news reports stated he had paid for a $1,000-an-hour New York City call girl.

At the time, Spitzer had been raising the alarm about sub-prime mortgages. In the wake of the economic meltdown triggered last fall by sub-prime loans, some observers have suggested that Spitzer may have been targeted by law enforcement because of his high-profile opposition to Wall Street financial policies.

Greg Palast writes about "prosecutorial discretion" and Spitzer:

Funny thing, this `discretion.' For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer - rarely done in these cases - was made at the `discretion' of Bush's Justice Department.

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) will introduce a House resolution on Monday demanding Obama retract and apologize for remarks he has made about Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley this past week.

Whereas President Obama proceeded to state Sergeant Crowley "acted stupidly" for arresting Professor Gates on charges of disorderly conduct;

Whereas, as a former Constitutional Law Professor, President Obama well understands that all Americans are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and their actions should not be prejudged prior to being fully and fairly judged by an appropriate and objective authority after due process;

Whereas, President Obama's nationally televised remarks may likely detrimentally influence the full and fair judgment by an appropriate and objective authority after due process regarding this local police response incident and, thereby, impair Sergeant Crowley's legal and professional standing in relation to said incident; and....

Large parts of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program -- which sent terrorist suspects to countries and prisons where they would be tortured -- could soon become public, thanks to a lawsuit in Britain on behalf of a person who claims he was a victim of the agency's program.

Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, who spent some seven years in US custody, five of them at Guantanamo, say that Jeppesen UK, a subsidiary of Boeing, has agreed to the presentation of evidence about the "ghost flights" it allegedly operated for the CIA -- off-the-grid private jets that transferred terrorist suspects to sites where they would be tortured.  

[snip]

Jeppesen is also the target of a lawsuit in the United States, launched by the ACLU [TL coverage] in order to -- as the ACLU put it -- stop corporations from profiting from the CIA's rendition program.

On Sunday, however, Zelaya said he had never received a formal invitation and was not sure if he would travel [to US Tues]. The State Department is also under attack from Republican lawmakers. On Saturday, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, a Florida Republican, met with officials in Honduras and said in a statement that ``the Honduran people were right to confront Zelaya as he usurped the law and gutted their constitution.''

McClatchy

Oh well, me thinks that this is the beginning of the end. To this date the US has not called this a coup. SOS Clinton's top advisor Lanny Davis is working for Micheletti. I think that this is over. Even Zelaya's supporters are getting tired of waiting. Michelleti will get his way, imo:

Micheletti has said the only person he will hand power over to is the winner of regularly scheduled elections set for Nov. 29.