Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi scored a giant gain for feminism last weekend. In shoving her controversy-plagued healthcare reform bill to victory by a paper-thin margin, she conclusively demonstrated that a woman can be just as gritty, ruthless and arm-twisting in pursuing her agenda as anyone in the long line of fabled male speakers before her. Even a basic feminist shibboleth like abortion rights became just another card for Pelosi to deal and swap.

It was a stunningly impressive recovery for someone who seemed to be coming apart at the seams last summer, when a sputtering, rattled Pelosi struggled to deal with the nationwide insurgency of town hall protesters -- reputable, concerned citizens whom she outrageously tried to tar as Nazis. Whether or not her bill survives in the Senate is immaterial: Pelosi's hard-won, trench-warfare win sets a new standard for U.S. women politicians and is certainly well beyond anything the posturing but ineffectual Hillary Clinton has ever achieved.

As for the actual content of the House healthcare bill, horrors! Where to begin? That there are serious deficiencies and injustices in the U.S. healthcare system has been obvious for decades. To bring the poor and vulnerable into the fold has been a high ideal and an urgent goal for most Democrats. But this rigid, intrusive and grotesquely expensive bill is a nightmare. Holy Hygeia, why can't my fellow Democrats see that the creation of another huge, inefficient federal bureaucracy would slow and disrupt the delivery of basic healthcare and subject us all to a labyrinthine mass of incompetent, unaccountable petty dictators? Massively expanding the number of healthcare consumers without making due provision for the production of more healthcare providers means that we're hurtling toward a staggering logjam of de facto rationing. Steel yourself for the deafening screams from the careerist professional class of limousine liberals when they get stranded for hours in the jammed, jostling anterooms of doctors' offices. They'll probably try to hire Caribbean nannies as ringers to do the waiting for them.

You did not know who she was until I introduced you to her. That's a very short "always."

Anyone who uses "limousine liberal" looses credibility, in my estimation. The idea that liberalism from the wealthy is somehow invalid is just silly.

Anyone who uses "limousine liberal" looses credibility, in my estimation. The idea that liberalism from the wealthy is somehow invalid is just silly.

Anyone who uses "limousine liberal" looses credibility, in my estimation. The idea that liberalism from the wealthy is somehow invalid is just silly.

Anyone who uses "limousine liberal" looses credibility, in my estimation. The idea that liberalism from the wealthy is somehow invalid is just silly.

Liberalism in general is predicated on unsound and untenable principles.

Montegue:

The United States has the single most regulated markets on the planet; yet, it's not enough. What, exactly, constitutes the bright line on economic and trade regulation sufficiency?

(The kinds of products and tactics we allowed they regulated. Short selling, for example)

Ignorance at it's finest.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in china? (edit - I call bullshit as well. There is a reason the rest of the world was really pissed at us over the financial crisis. The kinds of products and tactics we allowed they regulated. Short selling, for example)

Aizle:

How many Federal agencies have regulatory authority when it comes to some or all of the economy? Do you know? How many non-statutory regulations exists in the United States? What Federal agencies can alter trade in a certain segment of the economy by fiat?

Montegue:

The rest of the world wasn't pissed off over credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. The rest of the world was pissed off they lost money on unsecured securities. More importantly, they were pissed off that private credit rating agencies got away with and continue to get away with criminal fraud. They do not, however, cop to the duplicity of that attitude when their own credit rating agencies do the same thing.

To both of you:

"Ignorance at its finest" is the continued insistence that the United States is a wholly unregulated economy with little to no government oversight or intrusion in markets. It has been demonstrated, repeatedly, that the entire financial crisis was not only precipitated by government behavior but fueled by the same actions and monetary regulation that created the market in the first place. The entire financial crisis was a failure of over-regulation and government intrusion in the first place. Yet, you two continue to assert that U.S. markets lack regulation and lack oversight, despite a preponderance of the evidence otherwise.

Rafael:

I'm fairly certain Montegue is talking about bad-faith shorts which have occurred with alarming frequency in recent months. Technically, shorts are already regulated and require the trade to have the stock or money covered before the transaction is negotiated. In practice, however, less than credible traders have been arranging shorts and covering their *** afterwards.

That's the people who held the assets getting shorted's fault for not having the due dilligence to investigate their counter-party risk. Such regulation is more akin to the supposed reasons for the FDA and various drug prohibitions more than anything else.

Aizle: he's asking a rhetorical question to which he knows you don't know the answer to prove a point.