I notice that once again, banks are being blamed for the economic crisis ("The perpetrators, the banks, no one’s going to jail"). Since the only role any bank had in the crisis was loaning money to people who should not have qualified (which was actually driven by government policy), one can only surmise that she thinks bankers ought to go to jail for making such loans. Pretty standard stuff from this mob. (Yeah, I said it.)

It's not always, however, that the contradiction appears in the same sentence ("and now they don’t want to lend any money."). Well (at the risk of sounding childish), DUH Representative Schakowsky! You and and your party, who happen to control the White House and the Senate, and who have amply demonstrated that you'll not be constrained by the bounds of law or constitution, are calling almost daily for the jailing of these people for the money they DID lend. Why in the world would they want to lend more? And how can you ask them to in the same sentence in which you call for them to be JAILED for having done so in the past???

Sorry, I'm as annoyed at this as the next person. I'm not a "member" of the Tea Party, but the more I hear them bashed, the more I want to join. They are perhaps the only group in the country whose agenda is not driven by individual self-interest. Their proposals are such that it's not possible for them to be driven by anything but a sincere interest in the good of the country.

As for the proposed boycott though - that's exactly the kind of maneuver I'd expect out of the likes of the buffoons who put together this stupid game. It is well beneath us. Particularly given that the game isn't even alleged to have been produce with the knowledge of, let alone on behalf of, Pepsi, NASCAR, or any other of their clients.

If you want to write angry letters to these clients, feel free. But they, their employees, and their shareholders do NOT deserve to be harmed by the actions of a few freaks - freaks by the way who, if they hate the Tea Party, must necessarily also hate most of these clients who live and breathe the free market principles the Tea Party exists to defend.

I guess the delivery matters, but the conversation you relate about the doctor and God sounds like something intended to skewer someone so arrogant as to discount God's role in the healing process. The first clue that this wasn't the intent was the "I've date a lot of..." line.

In other words, the "me and God" part doesn't reflect arrogance. The "of course I don't believe that, God has nothing to do with it, it's all me" part does, and not just arrogance but arrogance to a comical degree. It seems like the kind of line that could only be delivered satirically by the clueless type character ordinarily portrayed by Steve Carell.

To be honest, I think it's worse than you suspect. It seems to me as though the president's intent, having already reaped whatever benefit the breaks offered to the economy by encouraging the purchase of corporate jets with the promise of the accelerated depreciation benefit, would now like to pull that benefit back before the intended beneficiaries have had a chance to fully utilize it. He's double-dealing.

To be honest, I think it's worse than you suspect. It seems to me as though the president's intent, having already reaped whatever benefit the breaks offered to the economy by encouraging the purchase of corporate jets with the promise of the accelerated depreciation benefit, would now like to pull that benefit back before the intended beneficiaries have had a chance to fully utilize it. He's double-dealing.

I sense a little confusion here. The article talks about HSAs. HSAs are health savings accounts. These are accounts that can be funded by the insured, the insurer or employer, or both, and are tax advantaged. Eligible medical expenses, such as pre-deductible expenses and copays can be paid for out of this account. The balance of such an account rolls over year to year. The accounts are usually coupled with a high-deductible catastrophic plan. It balances exposure of the insured to medical costs to allow the market to function with protection against being wiped out by a catastrophic illness. I don't believe HSAs can be used to pay for OTC drugs at all, with some exceptions - my company's RX plan covers a select group of OTC drugs, with a doctor's prescription, as if they were RX drugs, and copayments on those drugs are paid from my HSA balance. Not that it much matters all that much, because Obamacare criminalizes the high-deductible plans with which HSAs are generally paired, which will effectively eliminate the HSA once it phases all the way in in 2014.

What you describe with respect to requiring a doctor's RX to get coverage for certain OTC products applies to Flexible Spending Accounts, or FSAs. These are different from HSAs. They are always entirely funded by contributions from the insured. They are tax advantaged like HSAs, but they don't roll over year to year - whatever you don't use by 12/31, you lose. And as far as I know, except for the degradation already imposed by the Affordable Care Act, these accounts are not going anywhere. They will remain legal, just a little less valuable.

Both HSAs and FSAs are damaged by the Affordable Care Act, ironically in ways that will make care less affordable for all. But I felt that the distinction was important. An HSA was made available to me this year for the first time ever, and I love it, and would hate to see it - along with my accumulated balance - vanish in 2014.

or make some second-string comedian like Sarah Silverman tell him she’s going to be naked in her next film.

Naked? Hmm. And what do you mean by her "next" film? Has she been in one already, naked or otherwise?

"Sure, it’s fun to watch Stewart go after the other side. But it’s also a trap. If I don’t defend Cohen, what defense will I have when Stewart trains his fire on us and declares other references off-limits?"

That's not the only way in which it is a trap.

"Republicans are liars and therefore Nazis"
"Don't be ridiculous, they're not Nazis"

Not that he left unchallenged the fallacy that we are liars.

I feel for Joe the Plumber, but I don't think any civil case should be initiated until all the criminal trials are done with.

There ARE going to be criminal trials, aren't there? I mean, if a government employee can't go to jail for wrongly accessing confidential data to smear a private citizen based on his political beliefs, then why are we even bothering to pretend to have a criminal justice system?

No one has even implied that in this case.