Some Delicious Clarity From Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren

Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to solve a real, honest-to-God problem.


Our health care system was broken. 48 million people in this country had no health insurance. Women couldn't get access to cancer screenings. People with diabetes were denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. People with cancer hit the caps on their health insurance spending. And health spending in this country was growing far too fast. 


So we worked hard, we compromised, and we came up with a solution. A solution that will substantially improve the lives of millions of Americans – because that's the way a democracy works. 


It's time to end the debate about whether the Affordable Care Act should exist and whether it should be funded.


Congress voted for this law. President Obama signed this law. The Supreme Court upheld this law. The President ran for reelection on this law. His opponent said he would repeal it – and his opponent lost by five million votes.


Right now, Republicans are taking the government and the economy hostage, threatening serious damage to both unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act. For days, they even tried to change the law so that employers can deny women access to birth control coverage.


I am the mother of a daughter and the grandmother of granddaughters. I will never vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women's access to birth control. We have lived in that world, and we are not going back. Not ever.


I see things like this and I wonder what alternate reality some of my colleagues are living in.


So let me be very clear about what is happening in the real world: The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. Millions of people are counting on it – people who need health care coverage, people who need insurance policies that don't disappear just when they are sickest.


The law is here to stay, and it will stay.


Now the government is shut down. We haven't fixed the sequester because of all the obstruction. We haven't finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We haven't even passed a single appropriations bill because of all the obstruction.


The least we can do – the bare minimum we can do – would be to pass a "continuing resolution" to open the doors back up and turn the lights back on. We could ensure that over a million federal workers aren't staying home for no reason. We could end the government shutdown.


But the Republicans have refused to do even that. They have shuttered the government unless the President agreed to de-fund the Affordable Care Act.


The threats may continue, but they are not working and they never will. In a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can't win their fights through elections, can't win their fights in Congress, can't win their fights for the Presidency, and can't win their fights in Courts.


For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left – a last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.


The time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the reality of our democracy to get out of the way – so that those of us in BOTH parties can get back to working on solving the real problems faced by the American people.


We have real work to do.


Elizabeth Warren
http://elizabethwarren.com/

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Tax Dollars At Work.

Government shutdown begins over health care feud

ANDREW TAYLOR, AP
Tue Oct 1, 1:10 PM UTC

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown Tuesday as a long-running dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law forced about 800,000 federal workers off the job, suspending all but essential services.

The National Zoo's popular online "panda cam" went dark around 8 a.m. The White House grounds cut back to a skeletal staff. The U.S. Capitol canceled tours not personally led by Congress members.

With the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate at a stalemate, it was unclear how long a temporary bill needed to finance government activities would be stalled. The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, called the failure to pass a budget "conduct unbefitting a responsible Congress" and said he hoped it could be resolved by the end of the day Tuesday.

"Most people in the body politic are taking a look at this and saying, 'A pox on both of your houses. It should never have reached this point,'" Durbin said Tuesday morning on CNN.

But in the House, conservative Rep. Marsha Blackburn predicted the standoff would drag on if Obama and Senate Democrats refused to negotiate over delaying a key part of the health care law.

"You may see a partial shutdown for several days," Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox News. "People are going to realize they can live with a lot less government."

The health care law itself was unaffected as enrollment opened Tuesday for millions of people shopping for medical insurance.

The shutdown, the first since the winter of 1995-96, closed national parks across the nation.

click here to read full article:
http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20131001/US--Budget.Battle/print/

A Delicious photo of my youngest (and most precious) Little Jimmy.

 

As I recall, this incident led my husband Jim and me to rethink the continued employment of our rather sinister nanny Mrs. Baylock and on to the hiring (and sudden, unexplained departures) of a series of governesses - ending (for the time being) with our beloved Mrs Whipcrack. Say what you will about nazis, but sometimes the best child-rearing can only come from someone with ex-gestapo on their resume.

DELICIOUS HEADLINES

Happy Birthday Material Girl! Still DELICIOUS after all these years!

Today, my dumplings, we set sail to the most DELICIOUSLY insane Island this side of Gilligan's. For pure unintentional hilarity, there is no substitute.

At a preview screening for director John Frankenheimer’s remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau, my girlfriend Sylvia mistakenly referred to it as "The Island of Jeanne Moreau." As it turns out, her error was somewhat prophetic as Marlon Brando (in the title role) out-divas all divas of recent memory by making his first appearance looking like Bea Arthur, with troweled-on pancake makeup and an elaborate extended veil.

Previously filmed in 1933 (as Island of Lost Souls) and in 1977, this graphic 1996 version of H.G. Wells’ tale about a mad scientist whose experiments in crossbreeding humans with animals goes terribly awry, was justly roasted by the critics.

Did they really need to make The Island of Dr. Moreau yet again? The answer, to any Bad Movie collector is, of course, yes. Imagine our delight when this version not only turned out to be quite different, but downright insane! One demented highlight (in a film just bursting with them!), has Brando playing classical music on a piano accompanied by a tiny creature (with a face like Ross Perot) on its own tiny piano.

David Thewlis plays a wayward scholar who is rescued at sea by Moreau’s assistant Val Kilmer and brought to the mad doctor’s island to discover the doctor’s unnatural "children." Fairuza Balk plays Brando’s half-cat daughter, but its Brando and Kilmer (found in one scene doing a killer Brando impersonation) who steal the show.

As Moreau, Brando is a waddling behemoth who spends most of his time dressing in ornate flowing caftans and matching do-rags. We never see this ballooned-up drag queen doing any actual research; with more costume changes than a Lana Turner movie, he’s obviously too busy choosing his next outfit.

Brando’s mincing fashion show and Truman Capote-like complaints about the jungle heat are equaled only by the sight of a drugged-out Kilmer, in femme lounge-wear and a white bandana that looks like it came from Joan Crawford’s closet.

Kilmer, (Hollywood’s new Shannon Doherty? Discuss.), obviously realizing how hopeless the whole project was decided to undermine the proceedings using the time-tested strategy of camp. His scenes with Thewlis have an unmistakably seductive element, where he consistently invades the latter’s "personal space" by conducting conversations an inch away from his nose.

All this homoerotic tension comes to naught as Kilmer just becomes crazier as the film trudges haplessly on. When finally there doesn’t seem to be a shred of scenery left standing, and perhaps finally sensing a complete loss of control, director Frankenheimer sics a mad dog on him, sadly ending Kilmer’s scenery-guzzling Brando impersonations for good. But until then, Bad Movie fans will find much to love in this deliriously, brainless cult film experience.

This looks like a job for . . .