http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/74743.html

They must be putting something funny in the water at the White House..

Or else they are partaking of the Wacky Taabacky.... :D

Michale.....

If you have any evidence to dispute the observations, by all means.. :D

On another note...

It looks like the massive beatings Obama took last weekend are not going to go away anytime soon..

Top Obama campaign donor accused of fraud
http://news.yahoo.com/top-obama-campaign-donor-accused-fraud-204442621.html;_ylt=AsjVKeTqnm_B_gjKiV0JykWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNsdmVzbTFoBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBGUARwa2cDNTZmYWJmNjQtNDAxYi0zOWQ0LTg1YzUtNDhkNGQzNTVhMTdjBHBvcwMyBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyA2VmYTEwYTExLTdjNzItMTFlMS1iYjMzLWI1ZGVjZDY5OTM4OQ--;_ylg=X3oDMTFrM25vcXFyBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAMEcHQDc2VjdGlvbnMEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

I think the only question on Obama's poll numbers will be 'how low can they go?'...

Michale.....

Are you freakin' kidding me?

Michale, you shouldn't go around droping links like that in public. It reflects poorly on you and I don't want to see that.

If I want to find out what happened at the Supreme Court on this issue, I'll listen to the oral arguments or read the transcript myself.

I suggest you do the same and we can both report back here.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/04/01/From-Hugs-to-Hand-Wringing-Watching-the-Elite-Legal-Left-Freak-Out-at-the-Supreme-Court

It's a very good read... :D

Michale.....

And, if pigs had wings they'd fly. You seem to have a special knack for fact avoidance.

Philip Musgrove, the editor-in-chief of the WHO report that accompanied the rankings, calls the figures that resulted from this step "so many made-up numbers," and the result a "nonsense ranking." Dr. Musgrove, an economist who is now deputy editor of the journal Health Affairs, says he was hired to edit the report's text but didn't fully understand the methodology until after the report was released. After he left the WHO, he wrote an article in 2003 for the medical journal Lancet criticizing the rankings as "meaningless."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125608054324397621.html

If you manipulate the numbers and plug in whatever values you want, you can make a report say absolutely anything you want..

One only has to look at IPCC reports to know this is true. :D

Michale.....

I would like to see those lists.. :D

I fail to understand how you can believe that creating hundreds of new government bureaucracies will help people get better care??

Further, as has been pointed out by a doctor, better insurance coverage would not equal better care. In fact, it's likely that it will equal WORSE care...

It should be painfully clear to the Left that Crapcare was not the solution to this country's healthcare issues.

Like so many other things coming out of government, it would have become part of the problem, not the solution..

Michale.....

I suspect this is the very kind of attitude that helps to explains why the US ranks so very low on the list of countries that have an affordable, sustainable and effective healthcare system. So much for exceptionalism ...

Probably the same thing that would have happened to the four million Americans who would have LOST their Health Insurance under the ACA..

They'll manage...

Government is not the solution to everything.

Sometimes, MANY times, it's the problem...

Michale.....

No, no, no. It goes like this ...

I see, said the blind man to the deaf man.

What will happen to all those Americans who have been unable to get health insurance without the ACA?

I am assuming that you have taken your personal responsiblity seriously and are covered by health insurance. How will you be personally affected, whether the ACA is upheld by the Supreme Court or not?

Said the blind man when he picked up the hammer and saw... :D

yuk yuk yuk

Michale.....

Well, I wouldn't wager anything on the outcome based on the idea that oral arguments reveal the juctices' thinking on any issue or how they will vote, if I were you. :)

I thought the idea was that oral arguments reveal the justices' thinking, not that they determine it.

I, for one, wouldn't mind if you got rid of the lists all together.

Biden has only 4 MIDOTW awards, Geithner shouldn't be anywhere near the other list and I don't particularly enjoy being reminded about either one of those scenarios.

Speaking of Geithner, the MDDOTW's awarded to him were, for the most part, done so on the basis of sheer heresay and otherwise ill-informed media accounts. One of the awards was for "laundering taxpayers' money" or something like that which I don't know anything about but I will delve further into it, rest assured ...

You shouldn't have reminded me about any of this. I can be like a dog with a bone, you know. :)

Perhaps...

However, a person can gain insight to what the Justices might be thinking by the questions they ask..

If this is true, then it's clear to all that Crapcare is DOA...

I read a line somewhere that said something to the effect of, "if you can't make it 90 seconds into your oral argument w/o being interrupted by a Justice, then your position is in trouble."

"Now, I don't know what all that means, but it sounds pretty bad."
-Daniel A Kaffey, A FEW GOOD MEN

Moving along to the solo award, we simply have to hand Representative Bobby Rush his own Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award this week as well, for appearing in a "hoodie" on the floor of the House of Representatives this week.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...

It should also be noted that, within a day of this hate-mongering stunt, two men in hoodies gunned down 6 people ages from 16 to 24.

This occurred in Bobby Rush's Congressional District....

Look, wearing a hoodie doesn't necessarily make one a scumbag thug 'gangsta'... Just like wearing a swastika doesn't necessarily make one a psychotic killer or wearing pastels colors doesn't necessarily make a man gay..

However, given the context of a certain set of circumstances, it's a pretty good indication...

Michale.....

You know, that reminds me... I haven't updated the all-time lists in the sidebars in a while, so I just went and did so. They should now be up to date.

I'm talking about a very specific thing on the site -- if you go to FridayTalkingPoints.com and look on the upper left sidebar, there are two lists of the top award winners. But, alas, these lists must be updated manually, and sometimes I forget. The main page of the big "all-time FTP winners list" I do faithfully update every week, but sometimes I neglect to update the sidebar lists.

In fact, I've been thinking of just deleting these sidebar lists, because they seem like more trouble than they're worth.

So... open question... would anybody shed any tears if I rearranged the FridayTalkingPoints site layout a bit? And got rid of these two lists?

Let me know...

-CW

Which, of course, shouldn't come as any great surprise, given similar performances by any number of administration officials when it comes to communicating an important message on any number of critical issues. It's been a hallmark of this adminstration and something I never would have expected from Obama/Biden.

Of course, the great exception to this apparent inability to communicate has been Secretary Geithner but, that is fodder for discussion about a whole other MIDOTW award. :)

Anyway, I have a feeling that the wait for the court's decision on this one is going to feel like a lot longer than just a couple of months. And, it's reassuring to know that Verrilli's performance won't have anything to do with it!

In other words, I'm guessing that his MDDOTW award will stand the test of time and that the stellar performance and admirable reputation of everyone at FTP HQ will not be impugned. And, I mean that sincerely.

No, just soundbites.

It sounds like you're calling me out on my buying in to the whole groupthink of the week on the MDDOTW.

You know what? You're right. I have no plausible defense on that accord. The criteria for these awards is ever-flexible, and must at times be annoying to readers. But upon reflection, you are indeed correct, I just bought in to the whole herd mentality on that particular award.

Guilty as charged, in other words. I'm not being facetious or making some excuse, either -- you nailed me, I fully admit. I'll try to remember this and do better in the future.

If I interviewed Mitt, we'd probably just wind up talking about his dad and Ramblers, though... just being honest, here... heh.

-CW

On a more serious note, I really wish you could interview Mitt Romney. That was an excellent analysis of his comments on Leno.

I'm just wondering if any of you had a chance to listen to all or part or any of Verrilli's oral arguments.

I wish these awards could always be handed out based solely on merit, or lack thereof, and not on how the punditocracy generally views the actions of the award winner.

What I wonder is: if the Supremes decide Obamacare is constitutional, will the presenters of the MDDOTW eat crow? :)

Oh, you're right ... I'm just miffed that my most favourite MIDOTW award winners haven't, between the two of them, managed, as yet, to move further up the MIDOTW (and down, to the point of being off the MDDOTW) leaderboard than they have. :(