You can't possibly tell me that a public option doesn't even have 50 votes in the Senate. You absolutely cannot.

What should be happening is the White House should be meeting with the 50 most liberal Senate Democrats to craft a bill they will all vote for. And then present it as a unified group to the American people and get it to Obama's desk as soon as possible.

Oh wait, no, that's leadership. And Obama doesn't do that.

This whole circus makes me want to, I dunno, bite someone's finger off.

The reconciliation process only requires 50. I believe the White House is open to using this process, and so my question is, what the hell are you waiting for? Get this show on the road. Write a bill, have everyone know what they're talking about, and ram it right through the obstructionists. There is no reason to even acknowledge their existence in this. It's too important to worry about fringe lunatic opinions and undemocratic parliamentary procedure.

Make it happen. Now.

Parents should protest the inevitable decline into Communism that Labor Day represents by sending their children to school! This has the added benefit of making up for the day they're holding their children out of school Tuesday in order to - you guessed it - protest the inevitable decline into Communism represented by Obama telling kids to stay in school and work hard.

Isn't this debate supposed to be about the citizens and how to give them the best possible care? If so, then why does the opinion of a provider have any weight? I'm guessing a Republican provider, like a Republican business owner, isn't particularly interested in the greater well-being, but instead how to do best for himself. Not that self-interest is a terrible thing, but why would that person be able to provide a perspective beyond his own self-interest?

Answer: He wouldn't. We're going to get more of the typical talking points about how what's good for the provider (business owner) is good for everyone. And of course these things are demonstrably false.

Eventually we'll get a bill that has people pay 50% of their salaries directly to corporations, but eliminates actual insurance. The Democrats will crow about how bipartisan they've been, and it'll still pass with 0 Republican support.

And the country goes even further to hell.

I'm amazed by all the people who wish this were a monarchy.

The "naughties" are the beginning of the end. It will never again be as good as it was in the '90s, or at least not during our lifetimes.

The '00s were the start of the death spiral. It'll go slowly, and it'll have occasional minor recoveries, but our lives as we know them are over.

But there have apparently been plenty of women lining up to fuck this guy, too. Hey, good for them I guess.

And no, nobody outside of 3rd grade spells it "cum."

But Ted Kennedy was (probably) responsible for the death of one innocent woman! It's not like neoconservatism ever killed hundreds of thousands of people or anything!

I respect people who deserve respect. At this point I feel sad for his family, and Kristol was no longer a threat to anybody... but the world sure would be a better place if he had never been in it.

It has far more to do with deep economic anxieties and anger towards the political establishment and its elites than it does allegiance to one of the two parties or standard left-right debates.

I would agree with you if the people protesting today were the same folks protesting over the past 8 years. But I think you've missed a huge point. If people are angry with government in general, that's neither left nor right. But if these people only speak out against the government when it's run by Democrats, they're absolutely right-wingers. And the same principle applies to people who hated the debt under Bush but don't under Obama - they may pretend to be nonpartisan, but the timing of their outrage speaks volumes.

Glenn Beck agrees with Republicans when they're in power, and disagrees with Democrats. Thus, he is right-wing.

Here in the civilized world, we call them "elections."

This has been today's edition of "Stupid Answers for Stupid Questions."

She looks like a young woman to me. Not a girl, a woman. And she's showing a friggin' shoulder. Oh no, call the morality police!

(This is my way of saying I cannot fathom the outrage, not one bit. And I'm usually on the side of "dude, not cool." Not this time.)