Daily Mail:

A secret court is seizing the assets of thousands of elderly and mentally impaired people and turning control of their lives over to the State - against the wishes of their relatives.

The draconian measures are being imposed by the little-known Court of Protection, set up two years ago to act in the interests of people suffering from Alzheimer's or other mental incapacity.

The court hears about 23,000 cases a year - always in private - involving people deemed unable to take their own decisions. Using far-reaching powers, the court has so far taken control of more than £3.2billion of assets.

Historic legislation to expand U.S. health care and control costs won its first Republican supporter Tuesday and cleared a key Senate hurdle, a double-barreled triumph that propelled President Barack Obama’s signature issue toward votes this fall in both houses of Congress.

"When history calls, history calls," said Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, whose declaration of support ended weeks of suspense and provided the only drama of a 14-9 vote in the Senate Finance Committee. ...

That's the front page of the Bangor Daily News today.

If you read down a ways, you'll find some discussion about what is actually in the damn bill, all couched in the politics.

NBC's Harwood gives the views of "a White House official" -- "[T]hose bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed, and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult."*

Waaah!

If only we had a dynamic and progressive President who was a powerful orator and had mad negotiating skillz! Then things wouldn't be so c-o-m-m-m-plicated!

For those of you who can't do youtube, here's the transcript:

I think that the aid program is a fig leaf trying to make congress and the American people feel better about the war and about killing. I think that diplomacy in the areas of fig leaf to try to make the American people think that there is some constructive alternative to the war when the war itself is destructive and not constructive.
I think that the basic premise that we can alter afghan society is greatly flawed. Afghanistan is simply the part of Asia that was never occupied by the Russians or the English (inaudible). It’s not a country, it’s not even a place. It’s just an empty place on the map. It’s terra incognita. People who live there are a welter of different tribes, different language groups, different religious beliefs.
All over the country you find different people who have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that we call them Afghans, and they don’t even call themselves afghans. They’re (inaudible) or they’re Pashtuns, or they’re (other groups, inaudible)). The things that hold them together are simply the things that we try to create artificially.

And the idea that we could transform that society or any other society through aid I think is entirely questionable. I’ve never seen it happen, probably never will happen.

[Do read the comments. --lambert]

[Just cross-posted to Kos. How about a recommendation? And welcome, Eschatonians, Paul Krugman, Digby, Andrew Tobias, and Sadly, No readers. And Avedon, you know I do.]

[And readers, if you want others to read this post, you can use the Digg or Reddit buttons below to recommend it.]

ONE CURRENT PERMATHREAD on Big Orange is that Krugman and Obama are feuding or having a vendetta. Which, when you take a step back, is bizarre. That movement conservatives and Villagers like stone Bush enabler William Kristol, like David Brooks, Broderella, and Andrew Sullivan are all good with Obama isn't even mentioned in passing by Obama's fan base. And yet those same enthusiasts spend inordinate amounts of time vilifying Paul Krugman, a true progressive who was there for us from the earliest dark days of the Bush regime.

Curious. What's really happening?  Read more…