Greeting Time.

"Delighted to see you again. It seems a year since we met."

Where have you gone, George M. Pullman?

Allah needs you more than you may know...
(whoa whoa whoa)

An interesting religious accomodation case featured over at Volokh, re. Somali poultry processors working in Minnesota.

If you recruit foreign workers en masse for year-round agriculture jobs, it's expected that the community -- and especially the employers -- will step up to work with newcomers to adjust. To the weather, the schools, the federal holidays, our cultural norms. You can't just extract workers from one culture, then expect them to make it here without an assimilation program, of sorts.

Whether or not you agree with the (minor) decision in the link above, nobody should want disgruntled workers at a meat plant -- natives or non. Nor do you want newcomers out of work, isolated and not assimilating, if the job that brought them here is gone.

Immigration, employment practices, health and safety, community resources ... it's all related these human incentive policies. Nobody wins when you think small or short term, saving a (labor) buck for Peter Employer by passing associated (social) costs onto Paul Taxpayer.

That's why some say a rational immigration policy should come before any big reform of federal and state social programs. Makes sense to me.

Natural consequences in Nebraska.

Despite a larder full of goodies, the people just aren't buying the spin:

By DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star

As a fresh poll measured the political cost of Sen. Ben Nelson's health reform vote, he prepared Tuesday to take his case directly to Nebraskans during Wednesday night's Holiday Bowl game.

Nelson will air a new TV ad in which he attempts to debunk opposition claims that the Senate legislation represents a government takeover, and he makes the case for health care reform.
...
The political damage Nelson may have incurred in providing the critical 60th vote that cleared the way for Senate passage of the health care reform bill showed up Tuesday in a poll released by Rasmussen Reports.

The telephone survey of 500 Nebraskans, conducted Monday, suggested Republican Gov. Dave Heineman would defeat Nelson in a potential 2012 Senate race by a 61-30 margin.

The poll showed Nelson with a 55 percent unfavorable rating and 64 percent disapproval for Democratic health care reform legislation.
...
Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, said the Rasmussen results demonstrate that Nelson's votes on health care are "clearly out of touch with the majority" of Nebraskans.

Earlier, Schmit-Albin said Nelson betrayed his pro-life supporters when he agreed to compromise language prohibiting federal funding of abortions.
...
"One wonders if (Nelson) misjudged the level of opposition to this legislation from his constituents," Schmit-Albin said.

"Or if he had already made a decision to never seek office again."

Don't look now...

but they're starting the New Year celebrations early in the Meadhouse. Ann is still pining for Bush:

Bush was resolute.

I don't know what his favorite word was. Probably not something more than 2-syllables. ← That's a Bush joke. (I miss Bush jokes! (I miss Bush.))

Ann Althouse said...
Actually, his favorite word might have been a 3-letter one: America.
12/30/09 12:33 PM

Ann Althouse said...
If it was a 2-letter one, it was: freedom.

If it was a 1-letter one, it was: God.

Let's work on those counting skills in the new year? Such an underappreciated basic, the foundation of so much else...

And again, I'm usually one to give a lot of leeway in toast-making talents -- it's the thought that counts, right? -- but what the hell does this mean anyway?

But all full moons are terribly beautiful, and a full moon on New Year's Eve — New Decade's Eve — seems propitious. May the lift up your heart and inspire you to contribute what you can to whatever can be good about the next year and the 9 that follow.

The lift up your heart? Is that a new procedure, like stents or something?

Readers, here's to whatever is being lifted up at your own holiday celebrations this year.

And nevermind the New Age gooiness ("inspire you to contribute what you can to whatever can be good").

Just get in the pit, and try to love someone.

ADDED:

Ann Althouse said...
"a 3-letter one: America"

... uh... that was another Bush joke!

(Yeah, I meant "syllables.")
12/30/09 1:55 PM

A-mer-i-ca.
Actually Ann, that's four syllables, but who's counting. eh? ;-)

Commencing countdown, engines on.

I wonder if Maureen's been eating venison lately...

From observing that nobody's enjoying holidays at home in the White House, to capturing how the president's campaign cool pales in this season of warmth, there's little fat in this column about dragging the past forward:

Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet headed to Detroit, travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe.

We seemed to still be behind the curve and reactive, patting down grannies and 5-year-olds, confiscating snow globes and lip glosses.

Instead of modernity, we have airports where security is so retro that taking away pillows and blankies and bathroom breaks counts as a great leap forward.

If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?

...

On Tuesday, Obama stepped up to the microphone to admit what Janet Napolitano (who learned nothing from an earlier Janet named Reno) had first tried to deny: that there had been “a systemic failure” and a “catastrophic breach of security.”

But in a mystifying moment that was not technically or emotionally reassuring, there was no live video and it looked as though the Obama operation was flying by the seat of its pants.

Given that every utterance of the president is usually televised, it was a throwback to radio days — just at the moment we sought reassurance that our security has finally caught up to “Total Recall.”

All that TV viewers heard, broadcast from a Marine base in Kaneohe Bay, was the president’s disembodied voice, talking about “deficiencies.”

And put on a tie already, for the video clips that do make the news.

If it's worth holding a press conference at the local Marine base, it's worth dressing the part, no?

More Maureen:

President Obama’s favorite word is “unprecedented,” as Carol Lee of Politico pointed out. Yet he often seems mired in the past as well, letting his hallmark legislation get loaded up with old-school bribes and pork; surrounding himself with Clintonites; continuing the Bushies’ penchant for secrecy and expansive executive privilege; doubling down in Afghanistan while acting as though he’s getting out; and failing to capitalize on snazzy new technology while agencies thumb through printouts and continue their old turf battles.

ADDED:
This is the best YouTube song stereo I've heard yet...

How 'bout them ...

Wisconsin Badgers?

And Miami's a good team.

ADDED:
Sports Illustrated cover December 11, 2009. What jinx?

Regressing.

I'm not a fashion maven, but this look on Favre?

Grow up man, and stop playing the boy.

Californian present.

In a column from early May, Ross Douthat articulates what's missing in today's GOP:

This sort of politics will always be with us, and no doubt Mainers, in particular, are grateful that their senators are so good at the Senate’s backroom politics. But the idea that peeling a $100 billion dollars off whatever the Democrats ask for and declaring victory represents some kind of path forward for a reeling Republican Party is risible.

This doesn’t mean that Republicans should be happy that their tent is shrinking toward political irrelevance. But more Lincoln Chafees and Olympia Snowes aren’t the answer. What’s required instead is a better sort of centrist. The Reagan-era wave of Republican policy innovation — embodied, among others, by the late Jack Kemp — has calcified in much the same way that liberalism calcified a generation ago. And so in place of hacks and deal-makers, the Republican Party needs its own version of the neoliberals and New Democrats — reform-minded politicians like Gary Hart and Bill Clinton, who helped the Democratic Party recover from the Reagan era, instead of just surviving it.

Hart, Clinton and their peers were critical of their own side’s orthodoxies, but you couldn’t imagine them jumping ship to join the Republicans. They were deeply rooted in liberal politics, but they had definite ideas for how the Democratic Party could learn from its mistakes, and from its opponents, in order to further liberalism’s deeper goals.

No equivalent faction — rooted in conservatism, but eager for innovation — exists in the Republican Party today. ...
(T)o succeed, such a faction will have to represent something legitimately new in right-of-center politics. It can’t sound like Rush Limbaugh — but it can’t sound like Arlen Specter either.

And what will this new faction be charged with?

Hard choices, cleanup duty. The walk that trumps the talk.

And on a broader level, I’m more sympathetic than many conservatives to liberal complaints about America’s growing ungovernability. Unlike the left, I’m not worried about a liberal Congress’s inability to pass a public option — but I am worried that our political culture is ill-equipped to deal with the looming gulf between our projected revenues and our spending commitments.

Note that most of the bills listed above attracted supermajority support while either cutting taxes or hiking spending. (The pending health care legislation promises to pay for itself, but everyone, from the CBO on down, is taking that promise with a substantial grain of salt.)

This trend can’t continue: In the next decade or so, we’ll need to either raise taxes, cut spending, or both, or else the American future will resemble the Californian present. And anyone who thinks that Congress is ready to make those kind of hard choices hasn’t been paying attention to our politics lately.

Changing of the guard.

Jay Cutler and the Big D beat Brent* Favre in OT. My headline is optimistic, but the tide turns and the young guys win tonight, working together.

Well played.

-----------
* (sic).

Israel Plans More Homes in East Jerusalem
By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: December 28, 2009

JERUSALEM — Israel announced Monday that it would build nearly 700 housing units in Jewish areas of Jerusalem on territory conquered in the 1967 war that the Palestinians claim for their future state. The move was harshly condemned by Palestinian leaders as evidence that the Israelis are undermining efforts to restart peace talks.

Tenders for the 692 new units were issued by the Housing Ministry as part of the third and last batch of construction permits for 2009 across Israel. The other tenders issued, for about 6,500 units in 54 towns and communities, including more than 2,200 for Arab sectors of the country, drew little concern.

But the future of Jerusalem is among the most contentious issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel’s annexation of the parts of Jerusalem won in 1967 and its assertion that the reunified city would remain under its rule as its capital has won almost no support worldwide.

The United States consistently condemns unilateral Israeli steps in East Jerusalem as harmful to peace efforts.
...
A month ago, Israel advanced plans for 900 more units in a fourth Jewish area of Jerusalem on land captured in 1967, a move that was criticized by the European Union and the United States.

President Obama said then in a television interview that such building did not make Israel safer, made achieving peace harder and embittered the Palestinians.

Robbing healthy Peter to pay Paul.

Krugman is a bit longer in the tooth than young Mr. Klein, and he's bitter and looks much older than his age (wonder what that says about his state of health... I still say the man needs to get outside more) -- heck I even hear he picked up one of those Nobels, like President Obama, smart like that... but it's still important to call him every time he tries to spin this new healthcare reform victory that he and Mr. Klein are so proud of.

Instead of trying to sell us on all the benefits for the country under these new insurance reforms though, they took the easy way out and cheered all the one-sided backroom political dealings to foist an insurance mandate on the country. (Really, if insurance were that beneficial to everyone why not sell it on its merits, instead of forcing folks into that high risk pool?)

Pretty much, the insurance Ponzi was failing with out of control costs, unmet needs, and a country that honestly believes you can buy your way to better health, instead of embracing science and common sense over the long haul. There's no sense of preventative maintenance, rewarding those who practice self discipline, or acknowledging that some groups over the generations have worked their way into positions of better health for whatever reason than others passing on their genetics to the next generations. (Maybe physical labor has its place, and working for one's daily bread is a more healthy pursuit afterall than stressing inside over everybody else's business and trying to control their lives through all encompassing solutions?)

So where Krugman sees "gaming the system", I see people forced to carry their less healthy brothers and sisters who are rewarded for their physical shortcomings. We're no longer asking families or communities to step up and provide needed, non-medical care, but we're guaranteeing all unmet needs will be provided courtesy of other taxpayers. What we used to distribute as charity care -- reserved on a case-by-case basis for the helpless and those working to better their physical conditions -- is now awarded through the bureaucratic procedures. No questions asked.

Instead of an "opt out" for those who believe they will pay more into health insurance than they will take out, Mr. Krugman thinks there will be enough of these healthy players forced into the risk pool to float the unhealthy, whose pre-existing* illnesses and medical expenses and treatments will have no ceiling, nor any monetary penalty distinguishing them from those striving to take care of themselves and practice good health.

Really, this guy is an economist, and he thinks it's all going to magically balance, without any incentive to get the unhealthy system into working order? What a magic pill that will be.

And — getting a bit wonkish here — there’s really nothing the Democrats could have done differently other than abandoning the whole effort. If you’re going to attempt near-universal coverage, you have to have community rating, so that people with preexisting conditions can get insurance. If you’re going to have community rating, you have to have an individual mandate, so that healthy people are in the risk pool and people don’t game the system. And if you’re going to have an individual mandate, you have to have substantial subsidies to make insurance affordable.

* funny, I'd think these were the people not only gaming the system, but bankrupting it, hence the need for government reform to interfere with the rational functioning of the free market.

ADDED:
How are you doing this holiday season on keeping up your exercise routines? Here, we've gotten plenty of snow, but on the sunny days, the crisp air makes the daily walks more refreshing. And I've been trying to make it to the pool too, to keep active when the temperatures dip.

It would be a shame, I think, to have to eliminate the time I've budgeted for walks and swims, the money for state park stickers and pool fees, because I've got to pay some unused fee to the insurance companies, who've successfully tinkered with the American free market that allows all of us to make our individual health choices ... then only asks us to bear the consequences of our choices.

Who'd a thunk Mr. Krugman and Mr. Klein would be siding with the Big Bad Business Interests over those working folks trying to make their own decisions and live by them, without the big bad hand of business forcing us to subsidize their failed business plans.

I wonder how they celebrated the victory? With a good, home-cooked meal and a nice walk with friends to appreciate the little things, and work off the stress inside? Sure hope so. Because imagine how the doors are opened now to judge the health choices of others, floating in that pool you forced us all into...

Brett Favre lives...

... in Gainesville, Florida.

Speaking of ... how 'bout that Aaron Rodgers?

And tomorrow night?

Go Bears.

The tide turns.

She has an odd way of coming about (the unforseen "malfunctioning device"), but Althouse the law professor finally admits her vote for one of her own is proving a bit ... impractical. More show than substance.

Yeah, I voted for Obama. Am I sorry? I should be exactly the same amount of sorry I would be if Abdulmutallab's device had not malfunctioned. So, I must say: Yes, I'm sorry.

Speaking of image problems, perhaps Janet Napolitano's casual dress -- she should have been in a suit, not a leather jacket* -- on this morning's talk shows helped undermine confidence in her defensive skills.
-------------------------
* and lose the phallic backdrop. It seems like she/this administration is trying too hard to reassure us, as if only we believe, then reality isn't so much transcended but transformed. The old quick fix/magic change mentality. But what if it's not that easy? That it requires defining the goals and hopes, yes, but then committing everything you've got to working through good times and bad to achieve them. All hands on deck for that proposition? I didn't think so ...

And it's not like we can buy off terrorists like easy Nebraska politicians. That oughta scare the bejeesus out of us, if this fear of flying accomplishes nothing else.

God and sinners reconcile.

Joyful all ye nations rise.
Join the triumph of the skies.
With angelic hosts proclaim:
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
Hark the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn king.

Merry Christmas Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!

Prince of Peace...

King of Kings...

Open the Door,
Who Knows What Love Brings...

Historic day.

"If that's winning, I'd hate to see losing."

Following up on Ezra Klein's assurances...

Law professor Jonathan Adler today on Volokh posts a response to Sen. Baucus' relying on his analysis of Commerce Clause precedent to green-light the constitutionality of a healthcare insurance mandate:

...
In short, Congress could mandate universal participation in any economic activity and mandate the purchase of any product or service it chooses, so long as it does so as part of a broader regulatory scheme.

While some of the language in the majority opinion and Justice Scalia’s concurrence in Raich implies Congress has such power, this approach would create a commerce power without limit, an outcome which both Lopez and Morrison said was incompatible with the concept of enumerated powers. So to embrace this view, as I argued in this article, is to eviscerate their holdings. As I believe Lopez and Morrison are more consistent with the text of the Commerce Clause and the principles of enumerated powers, I would prefer that the Supreme Court uphold these decisions and overturn or severely limit Gonzales v. Raich, Wickard v. Filburn, and a few others.

So, while Senator Baucus correctly quoted my belief that an individual mandate is likely constitutional under existing precedent, he omitted my belief that existing precedent is unduly expansive. So while I would expect a lower court judge to uphold the mandate as against a constitutional challenge, I do not think the Supreme Court is required to do so. Indeed, I believe the Court could distinguish Raich, and hold the mandate out of bounds. (For an argument why courts should, and might, do so, see here.)

I should also note that I do not believe that members of Congress should base their decisions on whether to support proposed legislation based upon their prediction of how federal courts are likely to rule. Every member of Congress takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. I am old fashioned enough to believe this oath obligates each and every member of Congress to consider the constitutionality of proposed legislation for themselves, and refuse to vote in favor of legislation they conclude is out-of-bounds, even if they think the legislation would be a good idea. So Senator Baucus should spend less time quoting the assessment of folks like me about what current precedent means for proposed legislation, and more time explaining why he finds this and other legislative proposals to be consistent with the text, structure, and history of the Constitution he took an oath to uphold.

= "Do your own work, dammit!, instead of relying on your misinterpretions of mine."

The reason for the season.

Every year it seems, we get a story like this one, reminding us why it's necessary to keep Christ out of the Christmas story, and protect the feelings of minorities in Christian community schools:

When I was a little girl, I was told that I couldn't play Mary in our (public) school play — even though I had the longest hair, which would have guaranteed me the part — because I was Jewish. I went home crying, and my parents pointed out that Mary was Jewish, too.

But not making trouble was the watchword, so I said nothing. From the back row of the chorus, I mouthed the words to the songs with the other Jewish kids and felt a loneliness deep inside because I understood that we were not only different, but somehow lesser. Why should any child feel that?

Sadly, removing Christ's birth from the Christmas story anyplace a Jewish or minority child might be forced to encounter him by way of mandatory attendance (schools/municipal places) won't remove the loneliness of not knowing Christ this season .

Replacing the creche with a newly cut tree; gathering family and friends for food and festivities, but leaving out the shepherds and angels; substituting other gifts for the hope and knowledge that his birth is but a promise, the beginning, the greatest gift from the greatest giver ...

For many in the minority, that's enough. The goodwill trickle down is satisfying, with or without the Nativity Story. For others, there's no denying the power of a deeper belief. Faith is a gift, not easily taken away.

For those already filled with light, keep it shining! For those still reflecting on an unfilled emptiness, don't forget the greatest gift lying there, under the tree.

This Christmas, know Christ's love. Rejoice in the words he taught us:

Our Father
Who Art in Heaven
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Thy Kingdom Come
Thy Will Be Done
On Earth As It Is In Heaven
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
And Forgive Us Our Trespasses
As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us
Lead Us Not Into Temptation
But Deliver Us From Evil
Amen


(Deliver Us Lord From Every Evil
And Grant Us Peace In Our Day ... )

The Ezra ... Strikes Back.

Lol.

Posted at 6:29 PM ET, 12/22/2009

Max Baucus: The individual mandate is constitutional
One of the big right wing talking points of late has been that the individual mandate is not constitutional, because the constitution does not specifically say "the federal government may impose an individual mandate for the purposes of insuring all eligible Americans." Happily, whether things are or are not constitutional is the sort of thing Senate staff check out before putting them in bills, and in a floor statement today, Baucus laid out his staff's findings on the subject.

*wiping my eyes* "The staffers checked it out." He misstates the ("big right wing") argument, then tells us not to bother worrying about it. Is it an honest youthful ignorance, or a more frightening arrogance in thinking? Entitlement of the naive?

Btw: Don't miss him -- tonight, on Olberman! Talking health care reform...

Better than Ezra.

Despite promises of a self-proclaimed whippersnapper wonk, reality sometimes has a way of saying, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Still, cute lil fella that he is ("Watch me on Rachel Maddow tonight everyone!"), Ezra predicts the majority will just forget about this massive entitlement expansion.*

Cute, but a little dumb, if you ask me...

For example, here's one (predicted) effect of that mental health parity bill that passed under the late Sen. Kennedy's (well meaning) auspices a year ago:

Woodman’s Food Market, the giant grocery retailer, is dropping mental health benefits from its health insurance plan because it claims it can not afford to comply with a new federal law that will require mental health coverage to be equal to benefits for other illnesses.

The federal mental health parity law, passed in 2008, takes effect this January. The law does not require companies to offer mental health benefits, but if their health plans do offer mental health coverage, it must be as generous as coverage for other diseases. Critics of the bill, including many businesses, had warned that it would backfire by forcing companies to drop what limited mental health benefits they do offer.

"We have one of the best health plans in Wisconsin, and we can’t open up our employee-owners to a bunch of unidentified costs. We can’t have an open checkbook," says Clint Woodman, a vice president at the company and the grandson of Bill Woodman, who opened the first food store in Janesville in 1930. Today the chain includes 12 stores, 9 in Wisconsin and two of them in Madison, and employs over 2,800 workers, around half of whom also own a stake in the company.

Representatives for workers and local mental health advocates were quick to respond to the news, organizing a press conference for Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the Gammon St. entrance to the west side Woodman’s parking lot. "It’s very important to address this issue head on," says William Greer, the CEO and president of the Dane County Mental Health Center. "This is a precedent that I’m very concerned about. I’m worried other employers could follow suit. My hope is that any employer who is worried about this will give mental health parity a try before canceling."

I wonder how many hours of psychological help equal one MRI, helicopter lift, or surgery. That's a mighty high ceiling, where there is one.
Mandates = no good for BUSINESSSES. (but I guess you'd have to have a few years of actual non-wonk employment under your belt to understand how the real world works and all...)
-----------------

* A year after the president signs health-care reform, the country will have largely forgotten about it. That's not to say it won't be mentioned in the elections, or argued over in occasional op-eds. But what keeps it on the front page? It's easy enough to write about health-care reform when it's dominating the congressional agenda. When it's waiting to be implemented? Or when it's being implemented, and the main effect is that 16 million people without political power now have health-care coverage? I don't buy it.

The working theory appears to be that voters will blame Congress for the yearly increases in insurance premiums that will happen anyway. Again, I don't buy it. Most people don't see those increases. If they did, this would be a very different conversation. Health-care reform is very big on the scale of things that Congress normally does, but very small in comparison to our health-care system, or even our health-care problem. This bill isn't as good a bill as it needs to be, in large part because it leaves so much of a broken system untouched. But by the same token, it is not as vulnerable a bill as it could be, because it leave so much of a politically powerful system untouched. The political system will move onto other things, and the underlying policy isn't dramatic enough to hold America's attention.

Time will tell, time will tell...

Ezra's betting on short-attention spans dominating.

But as more and more Americans wise up that the good times are over, I'm guessing those youthful attitudes -- many on display from Boomer holdovers blessed by good timing -- peter out, and the country as a whole begins to sober up.

And we all learn to stand up straight, carry our own weight, cuz those tears are going nowhere, baby...

"Don't say that later will be better, now you're stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it..."

Besides, that whole mandate thing? Unconstitutional. But I suspect he thinks folks will forget about that old document too.

--------------
One, Two ... We Want More!

Not a hockey chant, just the liberals arguing that an extension of healthcare benefits to childless adults under the state's BadgerCorePlus program ... might not be enough for the Wellstone-Domenici Mental Health Parity Act.

The Core plan, which opened this year to 50,000 low-income adults, pays for unlimited visits to psychiatrists and for medicine. However, it does not cover treatment from counselors, psychologists, therapists, social workers, addiction experts or other providers of mental health and addiction services, even though many experts consider these services essential to recovery. Nor does it reimburse inpatient hospitalization for mental health and addiction problems, though such hospitalization is covered for other disorders.

Advocates for the mentally ill say these disparities and limitations violate both the federal law state officials support and common sense. Research shows that paying for mental health and addiction treatment can actually reduce future medical costs. Advocates also say the state needs to practice what it preaches. “This is pure hypocrisy,” says Diane Greenley, an attorney with Disability Rights Wisconsin in Madison and a staff member of the Wisconsin Council on Mental Health.

But officials with the state say the costs of expanding coverage are prohibitive and that they are waiting to hear from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which is expected to issue guidelines in January on this issue. “The devil is in the details,” says Barbara Beckert, director of the Milwaukee office of Disability Rights Wisconsin, who predicts that advocates and state officials might even be able to work out a compromise before then.
...
Across the state businesses are already scrambling to comply with the new mandate, which kicks in Jan. 1. So is at least one branch of state government, the Department of Employee Trust Funds, which administers group health plans for 236,000 state worker and retirees. The ETF recently notified members in a handbook that coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment would expand due to the federal parity law. Policies can no longer cap mental health payments and must include coverage for substance abuse as well.

But the state’s BadgerCare Plus Core plan has not made similar changes to its coverage. Officials with the program claim they do not need to.

The department e-mailed a statement to The Capital Times saying that the Core Plan does not violate the federal parity law because it provides unlimited visits to a psychiatrist. “The parity law does not require plans that provide [mental health and substance abuse disorder] benefits to provide access to all services for those conditions,” wrote spokeswoman Stephanie Smiley, who asserted that the program is under no obligation to provide other mental health or substance abuse services or disorders.

But advocates strongly disagree for several reasons. First, they say, limiting treatment to psychiatrists — who, unlike psychologists and other counselors, have a medical degree and can write prescriptions — is an illegal treatment limitation not imposed on other medical conditions in the plan. Second, many psychiatrists, loathe to accept Medicaid rates, refuse to take on these patients. The few that do are often so booked that it takes weeks and even months to see them, particularly in rural and inner city areas. Third, some psychiatrists require patients to be screened first, or seen later by other mental health professionals not covered by the plan. Finally, effective, efficient, and often less expensive therapy is available from psychologists, social workers, therapists, and others not covered by the plan.

“The law says that if you offer mental health benefits there can be no artificial constraints,” says David Riemer, policy director for Community Advocates Public Policy Institute, a Milwaukee organization that provides services and advocacy to low-income people. “On the health side, if you go to a doctor you can get a referral to a rehab specialist. So on the addiction side, if you go to a psychiatrist, you should be able to get a referral to an addictions rehab specialist.”

More with the "should be able to get" talk, no common sense on how this stuff plays out in the real world though.

Maybe if there were a few "artificial constraints" enacted in the first place, their would be less of a need for referral to an "addictions rehab specialist"... or,

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

I hope they learn something from Woodman's business decision, but I doubt it.

The need to save money is at the crux of the problem, says Jason Helgerson, program director for the state Medicaid programs. The state deserves credit, not criticism, for getting the core program up and running in this economy, he says. The state would like to be able to provide more mental health and substance abuse benefits to members. But it can’t afford to do so, unless it shrinks some other aspect of the program.

The Core program is a Medicaid waiver program that must remain budget neutral, which means that it can’t exceed a $215 million two-year spending cap imposed by Uncle Sam (the state’s other BadgerCare programs are not run as Medicaid waiver programs with strict caps). Within months of its official debut last summer, the program was so flooded by desperate applicants that it needed to freeze enrollment at 50,000 and start a waiting list, which now numbers more than 20,000.
...
The biggest chunk of drug costs, for example, was consumed by anti-psychotic medications. Drugs for such conditions as manic depression, schizophrenia, and bi-polar disorder cost nearly $500,000, or a third of all drug expenditures. And substance abuse, according to state data, racked up the highest costs among claims for in-patient care. More than $155,000 was paid to 35 members going through detox treatment, which is considered medical, not mental health treatment.

State officials found that the one percent of members accounted for approximately 25 percent of the program’s total expenditures in the first three months of its operation, while ten percent of members accounted for around 68 percent of total expenditures. These are at-risk individuals, officials say, with a complex tangle of chronic mental and physical disorders.

Health department officials say they simply cannot afford to pay for even more generous mental health benefits. A state analysis of what it would cost to expand mental health benefits in the Core plan, presented to an advisory group last August, came up with a price tag between $10 and $30 million.

Trivia.

Q. What was the first story covered by CNN?

A. (Here.)

Monday morning heh.

Silver lining
Aaron Rodgers: 3 TD, 383 Yards, 1 Rushing TD.
Brett Favre: No TD, 224 Pass Yards, 1 INT.




Not that I'm a Green Bay fan even...

In the dark middle of the night...

a bill comes to life...

WASHINGTON — After a long day of acid, partisan debate, Democrats held ranks early Monday in a dead-of-night procedural vote that proved they had locked in the decisive margin needed to pass a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

The roll was called shortly after 1 a.m., with Washington still snowbound after a weekend blizzard, and the Senate voted on party lines to cut off a Republican filibuster of a package of changes to the health care bill by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.

The vote was 60 to 40 — a tally that is expected to be repeated four times as further procedural hurdles are cleared in the days ahead, and then once more in a dramatic, if predictable, finale tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

with the spectre of Ted Kennedy hanging about the place.

The middle-of-the night session had a surreal quality to it. The chaplain, Barry C. Black, who opened the contentious Sunday session of the Senate with a prayer, did so again at 12:01 a.m. to officially begin a new legislative day.

For many Democrats, the landmark vote summoned the memory of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a champion of universal health care for his entire career, but who died in August before achieving that goal.

Mr. Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, sat in the front row of the spectator gallery to watch the vote. Seated behind her was the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, and the director of the White House Office of Health Care Reform, Nancy-Ann DeParle. “The historic moment before us is the easiest choice and perhaps the most historic vote we may ever cast as United States senators,” said Senator Paul G. Kirk, Democrat of Massachusetts, who was named to fill Mr. Kennedy’s seat. “Is this a bill of real reform that Ted Kennedy would champion and vote for? Absolutely, yes. Ted Kennedy knew real reform when he saw it, and so do I.”

But Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who was one of Mr. Kennedy’s closest friends in the Senate and who worked with him on many bipartisan health care bills over the years, said Democrats had failed to live up to Mr. Kennedy’s spirit of cooperation.

“The historic blizzard in Washington yesterday was a perfect symbol of the anger and frustration brewing,” Mr. Hatch said. “I don’t know of one Republican who is going to vote for this. If you can’t get 75 to 80 votes on something that is this important for this much reform, we should start over and do it on a step-by-step basis.”

If you want to be happy in a million ways...

for the holidays, you can't beat home sweet home!

Stay warm, wherever you are.

Some photos from summers past, guaranteed to warm the cockles of your heart. Or your money back.

Doctor, Doctor ... Gimme the News.

Don't do it, if you want a healthy country over the long course, Dean warns:

"This is a bigger bailout for the insurance industry than AIG," former Democratic National Committee chairman and medical doctor Howard Dean told "Good Morning America's" George Stephanopoulos today. "A very small number of people are going to get any insurance at all, until 2014, if the bill works.

"This is an insurance company's dream, this bill," Dean continued. "This is the Washington scramble, and I think it's ill-advised."

...

"This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate," Dean said. "Honestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill."

The former Democratic presidential candidate argues that in the rush to pass a health care bill, lawmakers have essentially stripped it of true reforms -- mainly the choices it would give to people -- and given too much to special interest groups and insurance companies, the chief executives of which, Dean says, would get 27 percent of the money Americans contribute.

"We've gotten to this stage ... in Washington where passing any bill is a victory, and that's the problem," Dean said. "Decisions are being about the long-term future of this country for short-term political reasons, and that's never a good sign."

He said he also doesn't see cost-control measures but, rather "a whole bunch of bureaucracies and a lot of promises."

Better to have gifted and lost...

or never to have gifted at all?

Put it this way: you're a couple with children, stapped for cash, and wanting to put something for them under the tree. Do you do what you can currently with what you have -- not knowing what the years ahead bring -- or do you blow your financial future by running it up on what everyone pretty much agrees is a crappy gift, guaranteed to break down without significant tinkering, just so you can be all showy right now about what you're gifting, fancy packaging and happy holiday times and all?

Be smart. Give what you can afford; pass on feeding the pocketbooks of those with an crappy product, insurance or not; and remember, the glow from the success of the showy day of gifting eventually ends, and the bills come due.

The kids will thank you later.

You throw tomatoes; I throw tow-mah-toes.

Ann Althouse quibbles with Brooks' phrasing choices in the column criticized below. Eh. Not one who appreciates misspellings, or confusing syntax myself, I do say "free the writers" in choosing their phrases.

For example, here's her beef:

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Which is the more embarrassing bungling of verb forms?

1. "If you were graduating from Princeton in the first part of the 20th century, you probably heard the university president, John Hibben, deliver one of his commencement addresses."

2. "I really wonder how the stimulus would have went had Lieberman been kicked."
Labels: grammar

posted by Ann Althouse at 11:26 AM

One might defend the chose of past present, rather than straight past ("were graduating" over "graduated") for a style reason: that first one plunks you down on the uncomfortable folding chairs in an overheated auditorium listening to a commencement speaker rattle on, on your "big day". Put me right there.

Feeds into the next paragraph too, "You might not have been paying attention during the speech, but as you got older a similar moral framework was floating around the culture, and it probably got lodged in your mind."

Again, you're sitting there "graduating", packed in with fellow classmates, thinking ahead to after the ceremony and catching the gist of the speaker's message*, but not really comprehending it fully until you've got a few years of reality or practical experience knocking around under your belt...

In short, unless it's an obvious gross grammatical "error", the tie goes to the writer in my book on questions of style, especially as our New Media redefines standards and more competition means the writing loosens up a bit. Like the casual dress code carryover from IT industries to corporate offices.

Another thing, if you want to play by the grammar rules of the past... What's inconsistent about the verb tenses in the last two sentences here?

I think #1 is more embarrassing because:

1. It's the first sentence in a column in the NYT. (And #2 is a blog post.)

2. Brooks has a copy editor to help him. (I don't know if Coates had editing help. I'm guessing he doesn't.)

Judging tight, it's either had/didn't or has/doesn't. But loosen up those eyeballs, readers. Give the writer some room to deliberately choose their words, even if it means minor inconsistency.

You might not like to be sitting on those seats, just starting out and forced to spend the time listening to someone more distinguished talk on, but if that's where he wants to put us, it's his work and now he's got us there.

But really, is it style points we all should be analyzing -- like concentrating on the speaker's choice of tie color that day, or how his hair is coiffed?

Or should you be listening more to the meat of the argument, so to speak, storing that away in your brain somewhere, so that later when it matters, you're able concentrate and criticize on the substance of things -- considering whether or not the argument was a good one you heard that day, and then comparing that to reality in hindsight.

I wonder if she even read past those opening lines...


------------
* Aside: My undergrad graduation speaker was Dr. C. Everett Koop. I remember his forward-looking message that day, as well as his unique appearance.

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer...

David Broooks evaluates last week's speech in Oslo, and it seems he still has a case of the tingles: "The Oslo speech was the most profound of his presidency, and maybe his life".

Obama's Christian Realism
President Obama has revived a cold war liberal doctrine — that evil must be fought without succumbing to the sinfulness within — and tried to apply it to a different world.

Meanwhile, over on the Volokh blog,
I found this comment, buried deep in a "Just War" comment thread, to be rather sobering a read:

David Sucher says:
I don’t see any mention here of ‘likelihood of winning.’ It seems to me that if you embark on a just cause using violence but have no real hope of ‘winning’ — however you have already described it — then you cannot have a just war.

So there has to be some large mention of whether you can win in determining a just war. Now I assume that violence in immediate self-defense are always more likely than not “just.” But once again — your method of self-defense — from, say, Al Quaeda by sending 200,000 troops to Afghanistan — has to meet the effectiveness test for your war to be ‘just.’

Of course no proponent will admit this particular Afghanistan war won’t work (or even likely not to work) so we are back at square one right now. But the discussion of ‘just war’ must take into account whether you can win, or if you will just make matters worse.
December 14, 2009, 8:21 pm

And as Tom Blackburn pointed out in yesterday's column, factors like troops and money, and public support, are exhaustible things...

Our pundits might see the current administration promising a multi-lifetime self-filling stocking full of Cold War level operations worldwide, but how long will our commitments last, once the tingle subsides and common realities set in? And at what price victory? a secure stalemate?

The never-ending days of America as global policeman are behind us, as surely as we've flipped our calendars into a new century. It's like that secular Santa song currently making the rounds:

I've warned all my friends and neighbours.
Better watch out for yourselves...

Everybody!

She had hooves prints on her forehead
and incriminating Claus marks on her back...

In today's Tiger beat...

(oh dear) here's a new track...

NEW YORK — A Canadian doctor who has treated golfer Tiger Woods, swimmer Dara Torres and NFL players is suspected of providing athletes with performance-enhancing drugs, according to a newspaper report.

The New York Times reported on its Web site Monday night that Dr. Anthony Galea was found with human growth hormone and Actovegin, a drug extracted from calf's blood, in his bag at the U.S.-Canada border in late September. He was arrested Oct. 15 in Toronto by Canadian police.

Using, selling or importing Actovegin is illegal in the United States.

Two more from the memory banks to get your Tuesday started...

Drop

Head On

~Jesus & Mary Chain

Just Like Honey -- 2007 -- the boys, all grown up.

--------------

The brothers started recording and sending demos to record companies in 1983, and by early 1984 they had recruited bass player Douglas Hart and teenage drummer Murray Dalglish.

Early influences included The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, and The Shangri-Las, William stating in 1985 "We all love The Shangri-Las, and one day we're going to make Shangri-Las records." Early demos displayed a similarity to the Ramones, prompting the brothers to add another element to their sound, in William's words "That's why we started using noise and feedback. We want to make records that sound different."

They began playing live in Spring 1984. In the early days Jim Reid's guitar would be left out of tune, while Dalglish's drumkit was limited to two drums, and Hart's bass guitar only had three strings, down to two by 1985. In Hart's words "that's the two I use, I mean what's the fucking point spending money on another two? Two is enough."

And she runs...

Hey!

And she was lying in the grass...
And she could see the highway breathing...
...
The wheels were moving
and she was right there with it
And she runs.

BONUS TRACK:

Here on this mountaintop
Woahoho
I got some wild, wild life
I got some news to tell ya
Woahoho
About some wild, wildlife
Here comes the doctor in charge
Woahoho
She's got some wild, wildlife
Ain't that the way you like it?
Ho, ha!
Living wild, wildlife.

Check out Mr. Businessman
Woah ho ah
He bought some wild, wildlife
On the way to the stock exchange
Woah ho ah
He got some wild, wildlife
Break it up when he opens the door
Whoahoho
He's doin' wild, wildlife
I know that's the way you like it
Woah ho ah
Living wild, wildlife

Peace of mind?
Piece of cake!
Thought control!
You get on board anytime you like

Like sittin' on pins and needles
Things fall apart, it's scientific

Sleeping on the interstate
Woah ho ah
Getting wild, wild life
Checkin' in, a checkin' out!
Uh, huh!
I got a wild, wild life
Spending all of my money and time
Oh, wha ho
Done too much wild, wild...
We wanna go, where we go, where we go

I'm doing wild, wild...
I know it, that's how we start

Got some wild, wildlife
Take a picture, here in the daylight
And it's a wild, wildlife
You've grown so tall, you've grown so fast

Wild, wild
I know that's the way you like it

Living wild wild wild wild, life!

Just because we call it a "just" war...

doesn't affect the running score. Everybody can see the scoreboard from where they're sitting, right?

Tom Blackburn sums up our military strategy, which really is just a game of kicking the can down the road a piece:

Finally, someone is being realistic about Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai said it would be 15 to 20 years before his country can afford to pay for its own defense. He is in a position to know — or to make it take that long.

Self-defense in 2024 is a long way from U.S withdrawal in July, 2011. The July date is the one President Obama used in his West Point speech. It melted like the glaciers when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tried to explain it. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, current Republican choice for Grand Pooh-bah, said it isn't important. Mr. Obama used it again in Oslo, but what does he know?

An array of generals and diplomats testified in Washington last week that there is far-off light at the end of the tunnel. They covered everything but the two lacks that make most of what they said impossible. Even a just war can't be fought without troops and money.
...
As I understand the Republicans, we can't afford to pay for unemployment insurance, health care reform or new sources of energy. But some of them seem to think we can afford a war. They may want to pay for it by privatizing Social Security.

The Democrats are even more unrealistic. Taxes? Our current wartime president is as unlikely to offend people by mentioning the unspeakable than was our previous wartime president.

While we were shopping, fulfilling ourselves with Oprah, asserting ourselves with NASCAR logos on our Hondas and voting for tax cuts, we collectively stripped the country of the discipline, self-sacrifice, intelligence and financial resources it takes to run an empire.

All we have is imperial dreams. Generals seek more translators in Afghanistan. They speak 30 languages there; they can't even talk to each other. Translate that.

Ruh Roh.

The breaking news on today's Tiger Woods drama ... the Department of Children and Family Services (DCF) was sent to his Florida home for a "well-being check".

I know money-wise, his p.r. people are surely counseling him to salvage the "Family Man" image. But the more comes out, the more people realize this wasn't a teary governor who fell in love with another, breaking longtime marital vows.

How can you rehabilitate something that really never was?

This was about sexxx, it appears. Not a one-time, "I was weak" temptation or even one person. The difference, maybe, between David Letterman's troubles and Tiger's? Nobody much figured Dave was a straight arrow, family man. He didn't sell that image. Plus, for whatever reason, no nasty details leaked from the women, and it appears Dave preferred the more wholesome smarter variety.

The reason so many fans followed Tiger though, was his promise of transforming golf from a rich old man's game to a competitive sport:

The unspoken, "It's not your grandfather's clubhouse anymore."

Now it seems, those very values we thought were laid to rest with the rise of Tiger Woods, are smacking us in the face like a bad reality show.

Credit the playah's in others sports -- Scottie Pippen comes to my aged mind -- who had women, didn't marry and play the Family Man, and who bred the women they slept with. A Bulls fan way back when, it surprised me to read in the paper about a paternity case, just how many children with different women he had fathered. He partied sexually.

Still, there's something admirable about not being a hypocrite about it.

This past decade, we've had many in-your-face battles about family values, and which group to blame when marriages fail and society allegedly crumbles because of it. We've hyped the family card so much, with our "Put the Children First Always" values that have created an awful lot of feel-good legislation, which typically ignore the practical realities of how life works. Who we are today.

If there's one good thing we can take away from the Tiger and Elin Woods family drama now playing out -- let's end the family values hypocrisy. The magical respect of the little gold ring, I call it. Let's look beyond that shiny symbol to the whole person...

If the Woods marriage survives on it's own accord, so be it. If the parents decide to gut it out for the sake of the children, only they know if there's something underneath all the tangled bedsheets worth saving. But please, keep it all private next time. No more playing Family Man in public, then begging one of the mistresses to change her answering machine message because the wife found the little black book.

Let's stop pretending, and start getting real. What we were hoping Tiger could do for the sport of golf, maybe in his failures as a man, he can do for family values as a whole.

Show up the images. Tear down the stereotypes. Lift the veils.

It's not your grandfather's family values anymore.

Sign o' the Times.

Frank Rich on our modern-day Mr. Potters (and I don't mean that Harry kid.):

What gives our Great Recession its particular darkness — and gives this film its haunting afterlife — is the disconnect between the corporate culture that is dictating the firing and the rest of us. In the shorthand of the day, it’s the dichotomy between Wall Street and Main Street, though that oversimplifies the divide. This disconnect isn’t just about the huge gap in income between the financial sector and the rest of America. Nor is it just about the inequities of a government bailout that rescued the irresponsible bankers who helped crash the economy while shortchanging the innocent victims of their reckless gambles. What “Up in the Air” captures is less didactic. It makes palpable the cultural and even physical chasm that opened up between the two Americas for years before the financial collapse.

The private-equity deal makers who bought and sold once-solid companies like trading cards, saddling them with debt, never saw the workers whose jobs were shredded by their cunning games of financial looting. The geniuses in Washington and on Wall Street who invented junk mortgages and then bundled and sold them as securities didn’t live in the same neighborhoods as the mortgagees, small investors and retirees left holding the bag once the housing bubble burst.

Those at the top are separated from the consequences of their actions. They are exemplified by Robert Rubin, formerly of Citigroup and a mentor to both Obama’s Treasury secretary and chief economic adviser. He looked the other way when his bank made ruinous high-risk bets, and then cashed out and split, leaving taxpayers to pay for the wreckage while he escaped any accountability. Such economic wise men peer down at the country from a hermetically sealed bubble of privilege and self-interest, much as Ryan does from the plane flying him to his next mass firing. And they tend to think, as Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs notoriously put it, that they are doing “God’s work” to sustain our free-market system.

Empowering extremists, and escalating.

The never-ending story...

JERUSALEM – The Israeli Cabinet voted Sunday to pour millions of dollars of new funding into Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including several hardline communities that have put up fierce resistance to government-imposed construction restrictions.

The vote caused an uncharacteristic rift in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet, with centrist members accusing the Israeli leader of caving in to pressure from Israeli extremists.

Netanyahu announced his spending plan last week, saying it would grant funds for transportation, education and health care to distressed areas throughout the country.

But the inclusion of some Jewish settlements, particularly isolated communities known for their hardline populations, drew accusations that he is trying to buy off settlers who are furious over the new limits on construction in their communities.

I suspect the recent Nobel speech has placated the wrong people.

But then I'd like to someday see an independent Israel, one not forever dependent on the United States for protection from the consequences of ill-advised actions.

And I kinda liked it better when the tribe was known more for their pursuit of right, not might. You'll never kill/bully/steal your way to a satisfactory solution amongst neighbors, this much I know.

Time to make the donuts blogposts

Time to feed the blog? Whatever, I just wanted to bump the story below. A good quiet read once through, but not a Sunday meditation. Too depressing.

Here, it's been cold -- the old car is taking a rest. Haven't tried today, but in the single digits, she just wasn't turning over for me. Not the battery, and sometimes she takes a turn or two to catch after a bit of wet weather, but I can't blame the lack of oompf in these temperatures. Self preservation at that age, no doubt. Meaning, once started you have to go, and sometimes it's best to stay put until it warms up outdoors. Not for me yet, but we're talking the car, you see...

To me, that (no car) means walking a bit. Practice and the meet here in Rice Lake, church, and with the new smaller freezer for the garden produce and venison, I haven't needed to visit the grocery, other than Kwik Trip* for bagged milk.

Walking in this weather, warm with the wool sweater and hat, it gives you time to think. And the air is cleaner, you move faster, and things are more purposeful. I'll be glad to get the car back running though (think block heater; she's earned it).

13-7 GB Chicago right now... time for a walk, perhaps a swim indoors. And let me see what I can do for a picture or two this afternoon.

---------------

* Re. Kwik Trip: I've long since gotten over my distaste at doing business in places phonetically spelled. Their gas station/convenience store competitor down the street? Kum & Go. No, it's not a truck stop.

Speaking of, what's the difference between Tiger Woods and Santa Claus? Santa stops after 3 Ho's. (An oldie, but a goodie...)

I'm usually not one to read stories of parents who lost children, but here is an article worth sharing, from the Superior Catholic Herald:

Making Things Visible,
Libby DuPont

My infant son Peter died on the Feast of Christ the King in 2006. That year, the feast fell on the Sunday following Thanksgiving. We had been out of town visiting family when he began to eat less and appear listless. On the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving we took him into the emergency room at the local children's hospital expecting to get a prescription and return to the festivities. Instead they admitted him, soon to discover he was in liver failure. The team of doctors worked very hard to try to diagnose and treat him, but there was nothing they could do. He died five days later of what we now know is a rare genetic condition.

Because Peter died on the eve the "holiday season", many lamented how hard the timing of everything must have been for us. Don't get me wrong. It was hard. At one point my husband gently told me it was time to stop pouring over the "Baby's First Christmas" sleepers when we were out at stores.

Our secular culture celebrates all of December as the "most wonderful time of the year" where everyone snuggles up before the fire, baking cookies and wrapping presents. According to them, we are supposed to create Norman Rockwell-esque scenes of family warmth and harmony. So, yes, fresh grief is even more striking in comparison. But at Mass, for four Sundays, our souls were mirrored in the hauntingly beautiful liturgies.

Advent is a penitential season of waiting, of longing for the Lord. So many of the readings are from Isaiah, from the heart of a people in exile, crying out to God to save them. And his promise in return: I have not forgotten you.

Advent is a liturgical period of authentic hope. In Advent, we prepare for Jesus' coming at Christmas, both 2,000 years ago, and mystically today. But we also remember that he will come again and there will be a day when every tear will be wiped away, when "no longer will there be an infant who lives but a few days." (Is 65:19-20).

Jesus didn't come to boost the economy through holiday sales. He didn't come to create a great opportunity for families to get together (though, of course, that's a wonderful fruit). He came to suffer for us, that one day our own suffering might give way to an eternity of joy.

So, there is no sense in pretending that December is an easy time for those who grieve. But there is no reason for people in pain to feel out of place in this season. It is precisely to them that it belongs.

-------------



DuPont is a mom, youth minister and graduate student in theology. Visit her blog at www.libbydupont.com.

Home swim meet.

Those darned kids. They just make you so proud: the event winners, the heat winners, those dropping times, finding personal success. The parents kicking in their time to put together the host site, run the show, and provide refreshments and apparel for sale.

Gotta go -- NBC's got It's a Wonderful Life on, it seems. Every year, I cheer on George to help Clarence to get those wings...

Mark 8:36

What benefit will it be to you
if you gain the whole world
but lose your own soul?

R.I.P.

E & P.

Eyes on the prize.

After studying and scoring high on a career merit test, and then taking the case that bears his name all the way to the Supreme Court -- and winning! ... today in New Haven, Conn., Frank Ricci gets his promotion.

Might not be a Supreme Court swearing-in, but it's no less to the man.

And a white ethnic who earns his way up is surely as inspirational and deserving as a wise latina. Still, the fight for equality of opportunity continues.

Dennis Thompson, an attorney for black firefighters who tried unsuccessfully last month to block the promotions of the plaintiffs, said Wednesday that his clients congratulate the newly promoted firefighters.

"Nobody is going to say these guys are unqualified," Thompson said.

But Thompson, who is trying to intervene in federal court in New Haven to challenge the validity of the exams now that they have been certified, said the fight is not over because the black firefighters were not heard. In other cases cities have been required to make more promotions than planned, he said.

"They understand this is a 15-round fight," Thompson said of his clients. "You don't decide who won in Round 3."

That prompted an angry reaction from Karen Torre, attorney for the white firefighters.

"Attorney Thompson's provocations and promise, to me, only demonstrates the need for the Supreme Court to take up the issue of the constitutionality of that provision of Title VII that allows such people to paralyze local governments and the civil service and hold the public hostage to endless litigation over the issue of race," Torre said in a statement.

Tis the season to be shilling...

I'm sorry, but this whole post, on a purported economic blog, makes me chuckle:

Nota Bene
10 Dec 2009 09:43 am

I just got this email from a reader regarding my foodie gift guide:

mcardle moves markets

Did you notice that Amazon sold out of all three styles of the Silvermark Butter boat within a day of your recommendation?

I had added the white butter boat to my cart, but wanted to confirm the size on a few other items so that I could qualify for free shipping. The next morning all three styles of butter boat were sold out.

Were you aware of your power?

It might just be the sheer awesomeness of the Silvermark butter boat, but I hope at least some of you get to enjoy the pleasure of spreadable, non-rancid butter.

----------------------------

Remember kids, the only way to create spreadable, non-rancid butter is with the Silvermark Butter boat (comes in 3 colors). Get one for the holidays, and impress your friends with your culinary talents all year long.* Lol.

And who knew my ice-fishing buddies -- catch and consume, baby! -- were dining at the top of the chain, no green energy expended on freshness at all. Life is Good ... even without a pretty pink butter boat to keep things soft, but not rancid.

*Act now. Supplies are running out...

Comstock and the Commerce Clause.

An older post on Volokh is interesting to re-read, after thinking more today about Raich and the Court's presumed reluctance to expand the reach -- perhaps even to dial down or tone back? -- of the Commerce Clause grab.

We can always hope.

Ilya Somin on Solicitor General Elena Kagan's decision not to argue the Commerce Clause angle in Comstock:

Why would the Solicitor General choose to forego a potentially winning argument? One possibility is that she simply doesn’t think that it is likely to win. But even if she is uncertain about the prospects, why not at least try? After all, nothing prevents the United States from making both the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause arguments. Another possibility is that either Kagan or one of her superiors in the Obama Administration secretly disagrees with the Supreme Court’s most expansive Commerce Clause precedents, such as Gonzales v. Raich, and does not want to see them extended. I hope this is true, but it seems unlikely for any number of reasons. I highly doubt that either Kagan or other high-ranking members of the Obama Justice Department disagree with the near-universal consensus among liberal jurists and legal scholars in favor of virtually unlimited congressional Commerce Clause authority.

The last possibility that occurs to me is that the administration not only expects the Commerce Clause argument to lose but fears that if that happens, it will create an unfavorable precedent for the federal government in future cases; even if the feds manage to win Comstock itself on the narrower penal system argument, that theory would not apply to other matters that the feds might seek to regulate under the Commerce Clause. As a result, the SG be willing to forego a (small) chance of winning the case on the Commerce Clause in exchange for increasing the likelihood that the Court might avoid the Commerce Clause issue entirely in making its ruling. If this conjecture is correct, it suggests that Kagan and the administration believe that the justices are more willing to cut back on Raich than I fear might be the case. If that really is the reason for the government’s posture in Comstock, I would be very happy. Kagan and her staff surely have a lot more inside information about the justices’ views than I do.

"Boldly going where Congress has never gone before."

Sen. Orrin Hatch kicks off today's discussion on the presumed constitutionality of requiring all Americans to buy healthcare insurance:

"Liberty requires limits on government, and that means the Constitution must... trump... politics .... and not the other way around."

Orin Kerr: Why do you hate America?

(said tongue firmly in cheek.)
Kerr entertains an interesting comment thread over at Volokh, playing off Randy Barnett's earlier posts challenging the presumed constitutionality of mandatory health care insurance.

Kerr's post keys in on Barnett's argument that "requiring health care insurance is not regulating commercial activity because it attempts to regulate inactivity":

Unlike Randy, I am no expert in the commerce clause. At the same time, the counter-argument is worth flagging, and I believe it runs like this. Everyone pays for health care goods and services somehow, whether often or only once-in-a-while. Some pay for services individually on their own. Others pay through a pre-purchased insurance plan. Both ways are economic activities — purchasing health care services. From this perspective, if the government chooses to mandate one option, it is not regulating “inactivity.” Rather, it is regulating the economic activity of buying health care services by replacing one means of buying those services with another way of buying those services.

The 7th comment to the thread brings this:

7.Off Kilter says:
As a physician, I can assure Professor Kerr that this claim is incorrect: ” Everyone pays for health care goods and services somehow, whether often or only once-in-a-while.”

Believe it or not, some people can still go through life and ultimately die without seeing a doctor. If we restrict our scrutiny to adults, it is very easy for healthy young active adults to never see a doctor, and suddenly die in an auto accident (DOA, so no futile care even in the end), or drop dead of an unexpected cardiac problem (classically hypertrophic cardiomyopathy). Further, these hypotheticals demonstrate fairly obviously that being forced to pay for health insurance wouldn’t have helped. So Kerr’s argument doesn’t seem sufficient.

December 9, 2009, 7:05 pm

And Kerr responds in comments 11 and 12:

11.Orin Kerr says:
Off kilter,

Going to a doctor is only a very small part of paying for health care, of course. Something as mundane as buying toothpaste counts as a purchase of goods and services for health care, too: It is a purchase of goods or services for an item used to take care of your physical health. And even if a small percentage of the population lives off the grid, never gets sick, never buys soap, and never has any medical care at all, presumably the existence of these outliers doesn’t address the rationality of the legislation.


December 9, 2009, 7:25 pm
12. Orin Kerr says:
Also, I should add, in case it’s not clear to commenters, that by presenting this argument I am suggesting what the cases seem to say, not what I personally think the law should be or what I personally want Congress to do.

Betting the longshot...

Randy Barnett shares his thoughts about the presumed constitutionality of mandatory healthcare insurance.

We conclude that this claim of power is, quite obviously, beyond the original public meaning of the enumerated powers scheme. It is also well beyond any previous Commerce Clause decision by the Supreme Court, including Wickard v. Filburn and Gonzales v. Raich. And finally, we do not think there are five Justices who will want to extend the commerce powers of Congress beyond Raich, especially for a program that may well be very unpopular politically by the time a challenge reaches the Court. Never in its history has the Court affirmed that Congress has a plenary police power, and it is not clear how it could limit a doctrine upholding this claim of power.

I realize this may seem counter-intuitive to many readers, but consider this. Anything that has never been done before is literally unprecedented, which means it lacks any precedent. So the question is, will the Supreme Court want to authorize this new extension of congressional power in light of the fact that it violates the first principles it affirmed in Lopez and Morrison? Or, to the contrary, will it want to take the opportunity reaffirm that these principles still apply, notwithstanding Raich, in a case with no further implications beyond the statute in question? Step right up and place your bets.

Oh yes, and for those who care about constitutional law: Raich involved an “as-applied” challenge wherein the Court refused to carve out a subset (marijuana produced and possessed for medical purposes as authorized by state law) of a larger class of activities (all production, distribution and possession of marijuana) where Congress deemed it essential to include the subclass as part of its larger regulatory scheme. A challenge to the individual health insurance mandate will be a “facial” challenge, as were Lopez (possession of guns within 1000 feet of a school) and Morrison (gender motivated violence), that will take the “class of activities” to be “regulated” as given by the statute to assess whether it is within the power of Congress to reach this class.

So here is the kicker: the “class of activities” is actually the inactivity of not participating in the market for insurance. In other words, it is doing nothing. So five Justices would have to find that Congress may compel a person to enter into an economic transaction under its power to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states.” I suppose the safe money is ALWAYS that the Court will uphold a statute. But even here? Unless the Congress takes seriously its duty to independently consider the constitutionality of its exercise of power (rather than merely predict how the Supreme Court with rule), it now looks like we will see.

Change is often slow in coming, and sometimes it seems like we're stuck in a rut. But all change begins somewhere, and tracking it down is like visiting the headwaters of the Mississippi in Lake Itasca, and realizing just how small and manageable some things start out as, before taking on a power of their own that others can only hope to harness (ie, the predictors.)

UPDATE: Barnett added the link to his paper, outlining why such a mandate is unconstitutional:

Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to mandate that an individual enter into a contract with a private party or purchase a good or service and, as this paper will explain, no decision or present doctrine of the Supreme Court justifies such a claim of power. Therefore, because this claim of power by Congress would literally be without precedent, it could only be upheld if the Supreme Court is willing to create a new constitutional doctrine. This memorandum explains why the two powers cited by supporters of this bill — the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and the power of Congress to tax — do not justify an individual mandate, even under the most expansive readings given these powers by the Supreme Court. In particular, this paper addresses four topics that have not yet been given adequate consideration by Congress and most, if not all, of the commentators:

* First, most arguments, either favoring or opposing the individual mandate, do not discuss the Supreme Court’s “class of activities” test, which it has applied in every relevant Commerce Clause case. This paper addresses this oversight and argues that, despite the broad congressional power to regulate interstate commerce, the individual mandate provision fails this test and is unlikely to survive the Court’s review.

* Second, this paper addresses the common, but mistaken, suggestion that a universal federal mandate to obtain health insurance is no different than a state requiring its licensed automobile drivers to have liability insurance for their injuries to others.

* Third, this paper analyzes claims arising under the Taxing Clause. A preliminary review raises serious questions about the constitutionality of using the taxing power in this manner.

* And finally, this paper explains why it is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would break new constitutional ground to save this unpopular personal mandate.

Tiger and Tebow.

What a contrast between two top athletes, dominant in their games, both gathering attention this week and now well known for their off-field activities.

Here's an article that links to a Tebow TMZ interview that kinda puts the cynics to shame. Happy Hump Day (Wednesday)!

Talking Tiger at golf.com.

Lipsey: Will fans taunt Tiger at Torrey Pines? Or is it totally civil, hushed for Tiger, with every fan thinking about the scandal but saying nothing? Do reporters grill him, or as usual let him off the hook at press conferences?

Friedman: Again, it depends on what transpires in the weeks before he tees off. How much does he take off the table? If nothing is addressed, then there will be large elements of the crowds that will be mercilessly vocal.

Morfit: There will be a lot of fans yelling out what they think are funny comments that will become totally predictable and almost as lame as "You da man!"

Lipsey: Does Steve Williams still have God-blessed authority to rip such fans to pieces?

Evans: My guess is that no one picks on Tiger. He's already had the worst perp walk imaginable: The first time he had to go into the kitchen and tell Elin that she was about to hear some ugly things about her husband.

Friedman: Farrell, that is naive beyond belief! Just go to any game in any sport these days. There will be folks who will be absolutely brutal.

Morfit: Farrell, you badly underestimate the yahoo factor at PGA Tour events.

Dusek: I'm wondering if they will bring signs or t-shirts instead of just calling out to him as he walks down the fairway. After a few beers in the hospitality tent, some fans will let Tiger know he's a punchline.

Evans: I think if people are brutal to Tiger Woods, it hurts the tournament, the sponsors and the players. It won't happen at Augusta, it won't happen at Arnie's place or Jack's place. It won't happen at the Players. Maybe it happens in Milwaukee or Phoenix, where he doesn't play.

Dusek: It will happen at Torrey Pines, Pebble Beach or the Match Play.

Morfit: Augusta is the only place I can think of where snide remarks might not happen — as much.

Anne Szeker, producer, Golf.com: It's a shame the U.S. Open isn't at Bethpage this year. That would have been an interesting crowd encounter.

Dusek: I'll be curious to see what happens at Celtic Manor in the Ryder Cup. Will the lads in Wales have a little fun with Tiger?

Sadly cynical.

You couldn't pay me enough to live in a world where this is what passes for smarts.

Nearly 30 years ago, I shared a motel room during a campaign with a self-described "Baseball Annie" and flight attendant who had literally played with my beloved Red Sox for years. Working in politics, I was shocked by such conduct. I'm kidding, of course. In those days, reporters used to go to parties with politicians and interns. These days, they still don't write what they know until and unless someone else does. And then they are shocked, shocked, to discover gambling in Casablanca.

More Change and Status Quo Upheaval...

Faster please.

Meanwhile, 300 miles north...

...only 80 days to the Birkebeiner where -- last I looked -- they still take entrants twice times twenty five...

Shape it up!

ADDED:

Heh.

Mary nodded.

The ox and lamb kept time.
I played my drum for him.
Then he smiled at me.
Me and myyyy Druuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmm !

The Almost interprets a holiday classic.

Better than you.

"This just in...

Tiger Woods is back in the hospital."

Last night's SNL skit, with Rhianna on the show as musical guest.

Heh.

Venison libido.

Just a quiet day at home and outside, readying our hearts for the holidays. Warmest winter wishes to you and yours, sincerely.

For it's no, nay, never...

No, nay, never ... no more
Will I play the Wild Rover?
No, never no more.

RIP Liam Clancy.

And that is how they captured him
This wild colonial boy.

Again, everybody!

There was a wild colonial boy.
Jack Duggan was his name...

Fun fact.

or, Friday night bonus post...

Did you know if you google my name, an earlier Mary survived the Titantic disaster? Reminds me of the story of the nanny saving Ernst Lubitsch's daughter...

100 percent.

That was the theme of our Friday sprint workout. It's an optional day, meaning RL Silver practices three, and Friday is an optional fourth.

I had a four-hour CLE in Eau Claire from 8:30-12:30pm, and wouldntchaknowit, last night it snowed. Really snowed, where they threw salt and you had to add the extra 10 minutes to warm and brush the car, if you park outside.

Does it sound like I'm complaining? While I can be critical, especially highly self critical, I'm not much of a complainer...

It was a beautiful drive. Straight shot south on 53 (look it up if you care to), to Eau Claire. Off an exit, down the street to the conference room at the big hotel in town.

I like these CLE's really. Some are really worthy; you pick up a lot. This one was a bit of bankruptcy, family law impact, and sponsored by the lawyer's insurance group. Those CLE's, I've found, are some of the most economical -- dollar credit for credit.

It was informative, and this past year, I've been getting my hair cut in Eau Claire. Great Clips, one of those walk in chains, but I called ahead and made sure my regular stylist was working today. Darned though, if she didn't tell me she started at 1pm, which was switched to 2pm by the time I got there today at 12:45.

I took a chance, with no time to spare heading back to afternoon swim practice...

Make a long story short, the new lady did fine, as far as I can tell. The holiday haircut, as it will be at its best in another 2-3 weeks.

Here's a Big Pig classic, to crank tonight: the lyrics are nonsense, but the hard-driving rhythm will surely keep you warm.

UPDATE: Lest you think I was ending on a down note (?), I forgot to mention I stopped at the local wine dell and purchased a recommended bottle of Argentinian Malbec. So happy Friday to you too out there.