Hear that, folks? If you have a brain tumor you shouldn't be entitled to "millions and millions and millions of health care provided." Because you are expendable if you can't afford to pay for that treatment yourself.

Is anyone old enough to remember when someone saying something like this would be scandalous? It wasn't really that long ago -- maybe four years or so. Back then, even Republican John McCain had to produce a health care proposal in order to be a viable candidate. Today, the going line is "Just Die" from these cynical, evil people.

ThinkProgress:

But Dreier suggested that these individuals would be better off enrolling in state-based “high-risk insurance pools,” that could offer coverage to the individuals who are turned away from the individual health care market because they are too costly to cover:

DREIER: And I believe my state of California has a structure in place to deal with pre-existing conditions. It’s a pooling process, which I think is one worthy of consideration, because while I don’t that think someone who is diagnosed with a massive tumor should the next day be able to have millions and millions and millions of dollars in health care provided, I do believe that there can be a structure to deal with the issue of pre-existing conditions.

California has high-risk pools, yes. But before the Affordable Care Act passed, there was no access to them. Believe me, I tried. They were closed because California didn't have additional funds to cover all of the uninsured people with pre-existing conditions.

Then the Affordable Care Act came along and the federal government sent funds so they could reopen. They've helped a lot of people, but nowhere near enough, because they are too expensive. By definition, they're designed to fail because they only cover people who are likely to incur high medical bills - adverse selection.

I'm glad Dreier is headed for retirement at the end of the year. My one regret is that post-retirement and pre-Medicare eligibility, Dreier will still be able to keep his Congressional health insurance. He should partake of the California high-risk pools for a year to learn why I think he's such an odious jerk.

In a remarkable exchange on Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word, Tennessee Rep. Phil Roe says he supports the repeal of ObamaCare and the Congressional health care plan, which he doesn't use because he's on Medicare now.

It was amazing and surreal all the way around. Mark Meckler, Tea Party Whore Extraordinaire, was on claiming that the "American People" supported repeal on a 2:1 basis. Adam Green of Bold Progressives did a great job challenging Phil Roe to allow them to conduct a poll of progressive versus conservative ideas, which I think Roe agreed to. Green also corrected Meckler's misstatement about people's attitude toward the health care bill, pointing out that most people think it didn't go far enough.

I don't have a transcript available of the entire exchange, but it's worth the time to watch it, if for nothing more than the big laugh at the end when Roe says "repeal it all because he's on Medicare."

Digby's take on the repeal effort nails it:

I suspect that the health care reform will be the Republicans' most valuable hostage in the next two years. Indeed, it will be the one thing that both the administration and the Senate will fight to the death to preserve --- it is Obama's most important legacy and the Democrats spilled a lot of blood to get it through. It remains to be seen what the Republicans will extract from them in the negotiations.

The repeal vote will be purely symbolic, as O'Donnell points out. But there will be a budget battle royale over funding the exchanges, the subsidies, and other provisions. That's where Republicans will begin to unwind the hairball that is ObamaCare.

Over the last ten years, I have become increasingly politicized about my food choices. I try to buy my produce from local farmers' markets; I won't buy from Whole Foods; I generally look for organic choices. I've also eliminated fast food from my kids' diets. That last item was/is the hardest part. Being kids, getting a toy with lunch is a big bonus.

One of the things I did was make my kids watch Morgan Spurlock's "SuperSize Me" to help them understand that Mommy wasn't being an arbitrary meanie, but that I cared about what went into their bodies. The bonus features included this scene where Spurlock bought McDonald's food and watch to see if it decomposed, and that brought it home for my kids.

That's some scary stuff there. If it doesn't break down in air, what the hell is it doing in your body? My kids won't eat at fast food restaurants any more. Artist Sallie Davies recreated the experiment for her Happy Meal Project.

That's the disturbing point brought home by the latest project of New York City-based artist and photographer Sally Davies, who bought a McDonald's Happy Meal back in April and left it out in her kitchen to see how well it would hold up over time.

The results? "The only change that I can see is that it has become hard as a rock," Davies told the U.K. Daily Mail.

She proceeded to photograph the Happy Meal each week and posted the pictures to Flickr to record the results of her experiment. Now, just over six months later, the Happy Meal has yet to even grow mold. She told the Daily Mail that "the food is plastic to the touch and has an acrylic sheen to it."

Don't expect it to decompose any time soon:

Wellness and nutrition educator Karen Hanrahan has indeed kept a McDonald's hamburger since 1996 to show clients and students how resistant fast food can be to decomposition.

Fourteen years? That's not a happy meal...that's sick.

Kindra Arnesen is the wife of a Gulf fisherman and she's been kicking butt on exposing BP abuses. In this latest news, she's discovered that BP is claiming is that if fishermen choose not to take part in the oil spill cleanup, BP will consider that as potential income declined and deduct it from their claims.

Kindra has previously talked about the serious health problems manifesting in those who have taken part in the cleanup.

In other words, if you didn't want to risk your health and expose yourself to their toxic waste, you're going to suffer financially as a result. But doesn't BP have a pretty sunflower logo?

Queen - Somebody To Love

Everyday - I try and I try and I try -
But everybody wants to put me down
They say I'm goin' crazy
They say I got a lot of water in my brain
Got no common sense
I got nobody left to believe

I am an optimistic person by nature, I really am. But I think that I have reached a point of uncharacteristic despair over the state of the world. I had hoped that we would reach a certain level of sanity after the Orwellian Bush/Cheney years, but instead the crazy has amped up to all new bewildering levels. And unfortunately, our media has failed us miserably by playing into the crazy without ever calling it that.

And we're going to have more of that this Sunday. The oil spill in the Gulf appears to be boring the Villagers with Coast Guard Commander Thad Allen appearing only on Face the Nation, which will also feature the Republican governors of the Gulf states. What's a little generational catastrophic environmental disaster to the Beltway Bubble? Navel gazing and sweeping pronouncements on the health of the majority party after the primaries of last week is a much more fun discussion, with Steny Hoyer and John Boehner on This Week, James Clyburn and Mike Pence on State of the Union, and Carly Fiorina on Meet the Press and Fox News Sunday. In the "What possible relevance do you have to be on a news show" category, GWB's non-Jenna daughter, Barbara Bush, is also on Fox New Sunday.

ABC's "This Week" - House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio; House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.; Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Govs. Charlie Crist, R-Fla., Haley Barbour, R-Miss., and Bob Riley, R-Ala.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - White House senior adviser David Axelrod; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.; Carly Fiorina, the Republican nominee for Senate from California.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Savannah Guthrie, John Heilemann, Rick Stengel, Helene Cooper. Topics: How Obama Can Take Charge of the Gulf Oil Crisis. Is the Rise of the New Right Making Regular Republicans Harder To Elect? Meter Qestions: Will President Obama Pass An Energy Bill This Year? YES: 6, NO: 6; Will the political damage to the President over the handling of the spill be long-lasting? YES: 5, No: 7.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Riley; Reps. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Mike Pence, R-Ind.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - It's the worst oil spill in US history and the media seems to want one thing from Obama: to see him get mad. In "Fareed's Take" this week, Fareed gets mad -- at the media's absurd demand that the President "show some emotion" instead of dealing with the many weighty issues on his plate. Plus Paul Wolfowitz, and the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister who says the activists onboard the flotilla had ties to Al Qaeda.

"Fox News Sunday" - Fiorina; Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Barbara Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

BAGnewsNotes: To Your Health

The Point: Something new to read

TPMDC: Rubio used his GOP-issued credit card for groceries and car repairs

The Grey Matter: Facts are stupid things

Erik's Choice: Bob Dylan's 'Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues'

The Pump Handle: Sickened by Service

Very good news, I think, on the climate change front. This is an excellent way to sidestep the political process and keep the necessary changes from getting bogged down in the politics:

The Obama administration will formally declare Monday that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to the public's health and welfare, a move that lays the groundwork for an economy-wide carbon cap even if Congress fails to enact climate legislation, sources familiar with the process said.

The move, which Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson will announce at an afternoon press conference, comes as the largest climate change conference in history gets underway in Copenhagen. It will finalize an initial "endangerment finding" by the government in April.

While an EPA spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter, the agency sent out a press advisory that Jackson will make "a significant climate announcement at a press briefing" at 1:15 p.m. at EPA headquarters. Jackson will also speak at the U.N.-sponsored climate conference Wednesday; her address is titled "Taking Action at Home." Obama, who will attend the end of the U.N. talks Dec. 18, has sent a series of recent signals to the international community that the United States will curb its carbon output as part of a new global climate deal.

The endangerment finding stems from a 2007 Supreme Court decision in which the court ordered the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases qualify as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. It could trigger a series of federal regulations affecting polluters, from vehicles to coal-fired power plants.

Businesses argue that such a finding would mean even emitters as small as a mom-and-pop grocery store would be forced to comply with onerous greenhouse gas regulations. The administration has crafted rules that would exempt facilities that emit less than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide or its equivalent annually. But it remains unclear if that exemption would hold up in court.

"An endangerment finding from the EPA could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. "The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don't stifle our economic recovery."

TrueSlant: Hire Rachel Maddow to fix Meet the Press.

The Zoo: A Question to Ask, with an interesting comment thread

Mad Kane: Bystander President

Kickstarter: A 'geekoid novel for smart people' seeks funding

Hot Chicks With Douchebags: I hope this is the most difficult decision I have to make today. Who is douchebag of the week (exceptin' Jon Kyl)?

This really, really annoys me. Why are these "centrist" Democrats so very enamored of allowing Republicans to filibuster? There's a reason why a majority of voters selected candidates with a "D" after their names - they didn't want any more Republican policies!

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama urged Democrats on Capitol Hill Wednesday to maintain party unity and preserve his fiscal priorities, as the House and Senate began moving on companion versions of a $3.6 trillion budget that would make good on his promise to cut the federal deficit in half.

Congressional leaders are sticking broadly to the priorities outlined by Mr. Obama in a budget message sent earlier this month to Capitol Hill. But important differences are emerging, as tensions simmer among Democrats over issues such as climate change and health care, as well as spending.

Notably, Democratic leaders in both chambers are pushing packages that call for narrower deficits and less spending than proposed by the White House. And those levels could go lower, especially in the Senate, where moderate Democrats from conservative states will be an important factor in the debate on the floor next week.

Democratic moderates are pressing for even further spending cuts, especially in domestic programs. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, one of those centrists, said more needs to be done to rein in spending. "This is a good direction, but I'd like to see it even lower," Mr. Nelson said.

Significantly, both the House and Senate decided to abandon a White House request for additional money for the Wall Street rescue. The two chambers also don't intend to invoke special legislative powers -- known as "reconciliation" -- that would allow climate-change legislation to avoid a filibuster in the Senate. That means any bill designed to control harmful emissions will have to attract 60 votes in the Senate, essentially ensuring any climate-change bill will require Republican support.

... deep inside an 86-page supplement to United States export regulations is a single sentence that bars U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu and dozens of other viruses to five countries designated "state sponsors of terrorism." The reason: Fear that they will be used for biological warfare. Under this little-known policy, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan may not get the vaccines unless they apply for special export licenses, which would be given or refused according to the discretion and timing of the U.S. Three of those nations — Iran, Cuba and Sudan — also are subject to a ban on all human pandemic influenza vaccines as part of a general U.S. embargo.

Even Bob Gates thinks it's "the nuttiest thing", when Indonesia does the same thing in reverse.

And the scientific community is not impressed.

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