For the GOP, We are All Just 'Minor Things'

Here's a short list of things that are the height of tyranny -- at least, in terms of healthcare reform -- according to Republicans (and courtesy of Crooks and Liars):

-Excluding children under age 19 with pre-existing conditions
-Lifting lifetime and annual limits on benefits paid. No longer can a price be put on someone's life.
-Allowing young adults to remain on their parents' policies.
-Closing the Medicare Part D donut hole for seniors.

These things must be repealed or the Republic shall surely fall! So the party's majority in the House of Representatives voted to save America from communism last night, passing a bill to repeal the healthcare reform law. Unfortunately, the effort is doomed to fail and is seen as symbolic (read, "political theater"). The hyperbolically and inaccurately titled "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" has no chance of ever becoming law itself. It would have to pass in the Senate -- where it stands no chance -- then to the president's desk -- where it'll be surely vetoed. Then it's back to Congress, where there's no chance of a veto override. The only thing more doomed than this bill are Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions.

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GOP Backs Away From Repealing Healthcare Reform

Healthcare reform is the worst thing ever. It will destroy the economy -- such as it is -- and shutter small businesses. Woe be unto the nation, for surely we are doomed.

Still, there's hope on the horizon. We've got elections in November and, once Republicans run all the Democrats out of office, there won't be any healthcare reform anymore. "Every [GOP] candidate who is running a campaign in November 2010, that will be one of the first questions and the first ads that will want to ask, 'Are your health care costs lower now by virtue of passing this health care bill?' I think the answer to that will be no, they are not," Republican Senatorial Committee chairman John Cornyn said a few weeks ago. Yup, Republicans are going to run on repeal and no two ways about it.

For his part, President Obama, clearly intimidated by Republican promises to run on repealing his landmark legislation, can't surrender fast enough.

"Be my guest," Obama said in the first of many planned appearances to sell the revamp before fall congressional elections. "If they want to have that fight, we can have it. Because I don't believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver's seat."

The president and Democrats are obviously on the run.





Despite the fact that running on repeal would be the smartest move anyone ever had, Republicans have blinked. Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, who had previously pledged to work for repeal, now says he won't. "There are a lot of things in this bill I think you and I certainly like," he says. He's not alone. Over at The Wonk Room, Igor Volsky put together this handy list:

- Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN): "The fact is that s not going to happen, OK? Corker said today at Vanderbilt University. He also said last week that repeal is probably not going to be practical."

- Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC): "It may not be total repeal at the end of the day, said Burr in a radio interview. It may be a series of fixes over the course of this bill getting enacted that allow us to change and possibly bend that cost curve down."

- Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): "The focus really should be on the misplaced priorities of the administration&Candidates are going to test the winds in their own states. & In some places, the health care bill is more popular than others."

- Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL): promised to lead the charge on repeal just two weeks ago, he now refuses to answer when reporters "asked repeatedly 'if he wanted to repeal health care reform.'"

For his part, John Cornyn is sticking to his guns -- except when he's not. Repeal it is... maybe... if you call it something else... or call an election cycle a "repeal."

"Whether you want to call it repeal, or whether you want to call it a referendum I don't think makes a dime's worth of difference," Cornyn told Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler. "I think the point we're trying to make, and I think those who are talking about repeal are trying to make, is that this will be the issue that will define the November election."

Of course, "repeal" and "referendum" don't mean the same thing at all. That's why they're two different words. Cornyn might as well have said, "Whether you want to call it swimming, or whether you want to call it a birthday cake I don't think makes a dime's worth of difference."

That didn't fly with the teabaggers -- which is a problem for Republicans -- so Cornyn tried to have his birthday cake and swim it, too. "Make no mistake about it: I fully support repealing this Washington takeover of health care and replacing it with a bipartisan bill that lowers the cost of health care," he's said more recently.

The GOP has painted themselves into a corner with their own over-the-top rhetoric. They've convinced the base that reform is a catastrophe, so they can't support it after the fact. But there's real danger that support for reform will gain ground between now and November, so they can't really put all their chips on repeal either.

In response to this new reality, they do what Republicans do; have it both ways. The answer to whether or not they're for repeal depends on who's doing the asking. The party's reactionary mindset prevents them from foreseeing this sort of thing. They just react to what's happening today, then do the same thing tomorrow. We saw the same lack of foresight in their support of Bush's invasion of Iraq; the whole thing was based on lies, but no one ever seemed to give a moment's thought to what would happen when those lies didn't actually pan out -- which was inevitable. There's a cliche that Republicans are playing checkers, while everyone else is playing chess, but even in checkers you have to think ahead. Republicans are playing pinball, whacking away at the ball when it comes close to the flippers and hoping for the best.

Is this approach going to work for them in November? Assuming nothing changes, yes. But that's the GOP's problem; they always assume nothing will change. In any case, recent history shows it can't possibly pan out in the long run. Republicans running on repeal are running on an already broken promise -- it doesn't stand a chance in hell.

If it doesn't bite them in the behind this time around, it'll do it eventually.

-Wisco


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Despite FOX's Reporting, World Fails to End

After more than a few setbacks and predictions of disaster, it's finally happened. Not surprisingly, FOX News helped whip up hysteria, talking to experts and then misrepresenting what those experts told them. No, I'm not talking about healthcare reform, I'm talking about the large hadron collider, which went online at 6:00 AM CDT today in Geneva, Switzerland. Here's FOX's reporting on the collider in January of 2009, before the last setback:

Still worried that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth when it's finally switched on this summer?

Um, well, you may have a point.

Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC, the world's largest particle collider, and determined that they won't simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.

The story goes on to cite Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna in Italy and Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama, who calculated that a mini black hole might be able to exist in the collider for more than a second. In a paper the trio published, they then went on to explain that this wasn't a problem since, regardless of their expanded calculations, the black holes would still dissolve.





But, of course, this is FOX News. Good news and accuracy don't fly here. If there's something out there that has even the slightest chance of harming you, then you should be absolutely terrified for your life. And don't worry, if you can't work up a blind, animal panic on your own, FOX is here to help. Scientists say you shouldn't freak out? Well, you know what FOX thinks of scientists.

"FoxNews.com can think of a few other things that didn't seem possible once -- the theory of continental drift, the fact that rocks fall from the sky, the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun, the idea that scientists could be horribly wrong.

"We're also wondering how often the LHC might create individual black holes, since longer-lived ones have a greater chance of merging with each other, and, um, well, see ya," the piece reads at the close. "If the worst comes to pass, and there's now a slightly greater chance that it might, at least it might explain why we've never heard from extraterrestrial civilizations: Maybe they built Large Hadron Colliders of their own."

Despite the fact that Casadio, Fabi, and Harms wrote that the collider wouldn't gobble up the planet, FOX ran all this under the headline, "Scientists Not So Sure 'Doomsday Machine' Won't Destroy World."

Well, here we are. I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling very crushed by the gravity of an object of infinite density. Light seems to be able to escape from my monitor and the guys from the city just rolled up to my curb to pick up the trash. Now granted I'm just going by own observations and I'm no physicist, but the world doesn't seem very obliterated today.

I know I said that I wasn't talking about healthcare reform, but I have been -- at least, metaphorically. If you watch FOX with any regularity, you're probably convinced that The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Act and The Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act will destroy America through various flavors of socialism, communism, and fascism. There are going to be death panels and rationing, big gummint bureaucrats are going to make decisions for you and your doctor (as opposed to the big insurance bureaucrats doing that now), and every woman is going to have to fill a lifetime quota of mandatory abortions... or something like that. At any rate, FOX News viewers are rendered stupid the network's coverage.

In August of 2009, an MSNBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that, among all news consumers, FOX News viewers were the most likely to be wrong about healthcare reform.

...In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly. But it would be incorrect to suggest that this is ONLY coming from conservative viewers who tune in to FOX. In fact, 41% of CNN/MSNBC viewers believe the misinformation about illegal immigrants, 39% believe the government takeover stuff, 40% believe the abortion misperception, and 30% believe the stuff about pulling the plug on grandma. What’s more, a good chunk of folks who get their news from broadcast TV (NBC, ABC, CBS) believe these things, too. This is about credible messengers using the media to get some of this misinformation out there, not as much about the filter itself. These numbers should worry Democratic operatives, as well as the news media that have been covering this story.

So FOX wasn't the only culprit here, but they were the absolute worst, by almost forty-five points on at least one issue. I'm not a fan of TV news in general, but if you absolutely have to get news from TV, for the sake of your own sanity, don't get it from FOX.

The world remains undestroyed as I finish this up. Don't expect to see that headline on FOX News.

-Wisco


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Eric Cantor's Magic Bullet Revisted

Last Friday, I wrote that House minority whip Eric Cantor's bullet story sounded like BS. Part of my reasoning was that "Cantor claims to have received threats himself, but he won't release them, because somehow that would be wrong." I thought it was a little fishy that Cantor would bring this up, only to say he wouldn't share them. Sure, releasing them would undercut his argument, but that argument -- that Democrats talking about death threats "fans the flames" of anger -- was already undercut by the mere mention of his own threats. He'd already let the cat out of the bag, so what's the deal? I figured that Cantor's threat claims were BS and I said so. Turns out, they weren't.

Greg Sargent, The Plum Line:

[Cantor spokesman Brad] Dayspring adds that security officials responsible for Cantor consider every threat legit until proven otherwise. Cantor had received many threats on his life in recent days, Dayspring added, presenting me with a series of emails with graphic anti-Semitic slurs and threats to kill Cantor, on the understanding that I not print the details.

Guess I wasn't the only person to come to the same conclusion, otherwise we never would've had even this limited release. Unfortunately for Cantor, those threats were real. Just as unfortunately, they don't help his argument any. Cantor, by his own argument, is now engaged in whipping up hysteria.

The rest of his story spent the weekend falling apart. As we knew on Friday, the bullet that broke a conference room window in Cantor's Virginia office was fired in the air and came back to earth in a pretty much random place. This revelation has had Cantor's office in spin cycle.

Talking Points Memo:

The office of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) is pushing back against criticism of the congressman's dramatic press conference Thursday in which he claimed that his Richmond campaign office was shot at -- only hours before police said that a bullet had penetrated the window, but not the blinds, of the office on a downward trajectory, after someone fired into the air.

Cantor's spokesman is now claiming in media interviews that Cantor didn't know that the bullet was randomly fired when he revealed the incident on national television Thursday.

"Eric Cantor's latest defense: I didn't know that the police had concluded the bullet in my (sometimes) office was randomly fired until after my press conference in which I said my office had been targeted," TPM's David Kurtz wrote Friday. "You know it's bad when your fallback defense is reckless disregard for the truth." Cantor was claiming that his office had been targeted -- without evidence.

What gets me about this is the hypocrisy of it all. If talking about threats and violence invites threats and violence, then Cantor should've kept his mouth shut. After all, by his own argument, this would've been the responsible thing to do. And claiming an attack before he knew it actually was an attack was foolish -- as events are now demonstrating. Apparently, Republicans learned nothing from the Invasion of Iraq and Bush's phantom WMD. When you're talking about threats, proof is a really good thing to have.

But the worst of it is that all of this is just some weird political dance to avoid condemning threats and crimes against Democrats in reaction to healthcare reform. As I wrote Friday, Cantor's speech (calling something where you take no questions a "press conference" is a joke) was just "Quick, look over there!" Republicans have no interest in addressing the issue at all.

Politico:

The Republican National Committee has rejected a proposal from its Democratic counterpart to sign a joint civility statement, POLITICO has learned.

Various members of the DNC including Chairman Tim Kaine, Executive Director Jen O Malley Dillon and Communications Director Brad Woodhouse contacted their respective RNC counterparts this week in hopes of getting RNC Chairman Michael Steele to co-sign a document with Kaine that, in part, called for elected officials of both parties to set an example of the civility we want to see in our citizenry.

"We also call on all Americans to respect differences of opinion, to refrain from inappropriate forms of intimidation, to reject violence and vandalism, and to scale back rhetoric that might reasonably be misinterpreted by those prone to such behavior," the statement read.

Of course Republicans rejected it; agreeing would mean abandoning the political strategy of the last year. Attack, lie, attack, lie, lather, rinse, repeat. While Cantor claims that Democrats are whipping up hysteria, you only need to see the RNC and DNC sites side by side to understand the difference between the two parties.


[Click for full sized image]

The RNC's site features a photoshopped image of an angry Nancy Pelosi surrounded by the flames of hell. The DNC's site looks a lot like the White House's site and highlights the achievements of Democrats. I guess you could argue that Republicans don't have any achievements to highlight, but that's hardly a defense. "Incendiary" is a word that's thrown around a lot, but I think using it to describe a page showing someone in flames is pretty fair. It's about as close to literally incendiary as you can get -- that is, until someone creates a java applet that actually shoots lighter fluid and sparks out of your monitor.

When your entire political strategy hinges on being a bunch of asses, you're not going to sign on to some civility statement. And, as Cantor demonstrated, if you ever get even the slimmest reason to play the victim card, you dive on the chance. Are there consequences to all of this? Sure. But so what?

Did Republicans worry about consequence when they invaded Iraq?

-Wisco


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UPDATE, From the Washington Post:

A Philadelphia man has been charged with threatening to kill Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and his family.

A two-count complaint and warrant was filed today accusing Norman Leboon, 33, of threatening to kill Cantor and his family in a YouTube video posted online this month, according to U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy and FBI Special Agent in Charge Jan Fedarcyk.

"The Department of Justice takes threats against government officials seriously, especially threats to kill or injure others," Levy said in statement. "Whether the reason for the threat is personal or political, threats are not protected by the First Amendment and are crimes."

Read the affidavit and the warrant.

Eric Cantor's Magic Bullet

I feel terrible. After the healthcare bill was passed, Democrats experienced a wave of vandalism and threats, including one case that could be described as attempted murder -- poorly attempted, sure, but there's no legal requirement that you have to be any good at this murder stuff to qualify for the charge. Not that it matters; it's not the perpetrators' fault, it's mine -- and those like me. Ask House minority whip Eric Cantor:


(If movie doesn't load, click here)

Salon's Mike Madden sums up Cantor's speech this way:

First, condemn violence against members of Congress. Next, announce that you've been threatened frequently yourself -- including having a bullet shot through your campaign office this week -- because you're Jewish. Third, blame Democrats for the whole mess, saying their decision to talk about threats would lead to more violence. After speaking for no more than four minutes, wrap up and leave the podium, taking no questions and marching silently through the Capitol halls as a mob of reporters chases after you trying to follow up.

I've talked about this stuff, so it's all my fault. As I say, I feel terrible. Or, at least, I did until read the police report of Cantor's bullet story.





Turns out, things are not quite the way Eric portrayed them. "A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window," Richmond police say. "The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds. There was no other damage to the room, which is used occasionally for meetings by the congressman."

If the shooter was targeting Cantor's office, he had a very strange way of doing it -- fire a bullet up into the air and let gravity pull it down into the window after it had spent all its energy. As a former hunter and someone who's pretty familiar with firearms, I've got to say that'd be one helluva trick shot -- one on the scale of one in a million. More likely is that some fool fired a bullet into the air, which came down and broke a random window. I think it's pretty clear that Cantor wasn't the target and that, in fact, there probably wasn't any target at all. It was just the result of some idiot who thinks a gun is a fancy firecracker.

So there's that. And Cantor claims to have received threats himself, but he won't release them, because somehow that would be wrong. So we're just going to have to take his word for that. You know what? This is all starting to smell a little like a bull pasture.

If it all turns out to be BS, how hypocritical would it be that Cantor used a stray bullet to claim criminal attack of his own? He accuses Democrats of politicizing threats and violence, while politicizing something that was neither. I can shorten Cantor's speech even more than Madden managed to; "Quick, look over there!"

How about we take an honest look at what's happening here, OK? Cantor and his Republicans have been over the top in their rhetoric. The President and Democrats are socialists, Maoists, Stalinists, or fascists, depending on who you ask and what they had for breakfast. The nation is under attack, freedoms will be lost, people will be put into camps, death panels will be instituted, grandma will be killed, abortions will be mandatory, and Barack Obama is a lying Marxist building a Gestapo-like force and siding with terrorists.

How odd that people would react violently... It's almost like they believe that the nation is under attack, freedoms will be lost, people will be put into camps, death panels will be instituted, grandma will be killed, abortions will be mandatory, and Barack Obama is a lying Marxist building a Gestapo-like force and siding with terrorists. Weird. You wonder where people get these crazy ideas.

Republicans find themselves behind the PR eight-ball. America has come to a very ugly place and the cause is obvious to anyone with a brain they're willing to use. So Republicans do what Republicans do; they lie, they play the victim card, and they blame someone else. McCarthyism and crazy conspiracy theories aren't driving people to violence, Democrats talking about violence are driving people to violence. Forget asking which came first, the chicken or the egg; by Republican logic, the chicken is the egg. Cause and effect -- who needs it? An event can happen before its cause, people can turn violent because Democrats talked about that violence after it happened. And now those same Democrats are politicizing the violence they provoked. It's all a circular, time-bending plot to make Republicans look bad. Oh, poor, poor Eric Cantor.

And we're supposed to buy this illogical -- scratch that -- anti-logical pile of crap. Why? Because Republicans believe we're stupid.

Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, they're right.

-Wisco


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Fired Up, Ready to Go

As many of my readers may or may not know, I helped a friend move yesterday. I posted nothing, got no news at all, and concentrated on lugging cedar chests and vanities around. I can miss a day... After all, what can happen in just one day?

This.

OK, so something huge can happen if you skip a day. The signing was expected in "the next few days," according to most media sources, so yesterday's events come as no big surprise. Speaking with characteristic caution, Vice President Biden said that this was "a big f--king deal."

From the White House transcript:

Today, I’m signing this reform bill into law on behalf of my mother, who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days.

I’m signing it for Ryan Smith, who’s here today. He runs a small business with five employees. He’s trying to do the right thing, paying half the cost of coverage for his workers. This bill will help him afford that coverage.

I’m signing it for 11-year-old Marcelas Owens, who’s also here. (Applause.) Marcelas lost his mom to an illness. And she didn’t have insurance and couldn’t afford the care that she needed. So in her memory he has told her story across America so that no other children have to go through what his family has experienced. (Applause.)

I’m signing it for Natoma Canfield. Natoma had to give up her health coverage after her rates were jacked up by more than 40 percent. She was terrified that an illness would mean she’d lose the house that her parents built, so she gave up her insurance. Now she’s lying in a hospital bed, as we speak, faced with just such an illness, praying that she can somehow afford to get well without insurance. Natoma’s family is here today because Natoma can’t be. And her sister Connie is here. Connie, stand up. (Applause.)

I’m signing this bill for all the leaders who took up this cause through the generations -- from Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt, from Harry Truman, to Lyndon Johnson, from Bill and Hillary Clinton, to one of the deans who’s been fighting this so long, John Dingell. (Applause.) To Senator Ted Kennedy. (Applause.) And it’s fitting that Ted’s widow, Vicki, is here -- it’s fitting that Teddy’s widow, Vicki, is here; and his niece Caroline; his son Patrick, whose vote helped make this reform a reality. (Applause.)

For their part, Republicans finally accepted defeat... Naw, just kidding. They're going to keep being dicks about it.

CNN:

Officials from 14 states have gone to court to block the historic overhaul of the U.S. health care system that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, arguing the law's requirement that individuals buy health insurance violates the Constitution.

Thirteen of those officials filed suit in a federal court in Pensacola, Florida, minutes after Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The complaint calls the act an "unprecedented encroachment on the sovereignty of the states" and asks a judge to block its enforcement.

"The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage," the lawsuit states.

So much for opposing frivolous lawsuits. Never let it be said that Republicans are anything but sore losers. Republicans, who've spent most of the last year conceding absolutely nothing and opposing everything, now complain that the bill isn't bipartisan enough. So, never let it be said that Republicans are honest in their talking points, either.

For their part, Democrats are already seeing a political advantage in passing this reform -- Greg Sargent reports that they've already raised over $2 million in individual contributions since the signing. And they did it without any fundraising campaign. Republicans, with their "Fire Pelosi" campaign have been less successful -- they've raised $1.3 million.

"We’ve always said the worm would turn on this once it passed," a source told Sargent. "We have a lot of work left to do. But how the political landscape has changed on this in the past few days tells you all you need to know why Republicans were so desperate to the point of being apoplectic about this bill passing."

"[T]his underscores why GOP leaders need to keep pounding the 'repeal' drum," Sargent wrote. "The prospect of some sort of action on the horizon, however realistic, remains their best shot at keeping the GOP base energized enough to prevent the Dem base’s energy from keeping pace."

At the signing ceremony, the chant of "fired up, ready to go!" rose. Outside, chants of "kill the bill!' no longer made any sense. They'll have to make up a new one. Good luck with that, GOP. It seems the Democratic base is a little more fired up and the Republican base is a little less ready to go.

-Wisco


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Please, Call it "Obamacare"

Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write them. If you don't, this program I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day... we will awake to find that we have so­cialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free.
-Ronald Reagan, urging voters to act against the passage of Medicare

As Republicans rail against creeping socialism, it's apparently already too late -- about 45 years too late. According to conservative icon Ronald Reagan, the United States went fullblown Marxist when Medicare passed in 1965.

What can we learn from Reagan's warning? For one thing, that hyperbole looks especially stupid as history moves on. For another, that the "slippery slope" argument is always horsecrap, because it involves crystal ball gazing. For yet another, it proves that Republicans either don't have the courage of their convictions or don't believe the things they say; Reagan never pushed for the repeal of Medicare, he left America to the socialist nightmare of singlepayer health insurance for seniors. Mr. "Morning in America" had previously argued that Medicare would be sunset in America. Remember that as other conservatives lament the passage of healthcare reform in the House of Representatives last night; they were wrong the last time, too.





The effects of this bill will be felt immediately. Many provisions won't kick in until 2014, but Reuters has a great breakdown of what's in the bill -- including what happens this year:

Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted.

Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

Young adults will be able to stay on their parents' health plans until the age of 26. Many health plans currently drop dependents from coverage when they turn 19 or finish college.

Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014.

A temporary reinsurance program is created to help companies maintain health coverage for early retirees between the ages of 55 and 64. This also expires in 2014.

Medicare drug beneficiaries who fall into the "doughnut hole" coverage gap will get a $250 rebate. The bill eventually closes that gap which currently begins after $2,700 is spent on drugs. Coverage starts again after $6,154 is spent.

A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers.

And, explaining house minority leader John Boehner's fierce opposition to the bill, "A 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps goes into effect on July 1."

Clearly, this bill might as well have been written by Kim Jong-Il.

On the right, the meltdown has already begun. As part of a last minute deal to get passage, Rep. Bart Stupak dropped his opposition to the bill over abortion coverage. In exchange for his vote -- and the vote of other anti-choice Democrats -- Stupak accepted an executive order that goes nowhere near as far as his amendment would have gone. Basically, the order states that government has to abide by existing law. In other words, Stupak and company caved. As Bart Stupak spoke in defense of the healthcare bill the chamber just passed, an unknown Republican shouted out "Baby killer!" Classless.

So, now it's a baby-killing, Marxist government takeover of healthcare. What are Republicans going to say when all this crazy stuff doesn't come to pass -- when the US doesn't turn Soviet, when there aren't any "death panels," when abortion rates don't skyrocket? Nothing, of course. They won't say a thing. They never do. Reagan pushed his crazy anti-Medicare fearmongering, then denied he ever did so. When Carter brought it up in a debate, Reagan's response was that famous "There you go again" line. He said he wasn't so much against the goals of Medicare, as he was in favor of alternate legislation.

So they'll freak out for a little bit. Maybe launch a doomed and half-hearted campaign to repeal healthcare reform. But I can practically guarantee that, as time goes on, one bit of rhetoric will die off -- conservatives will stop referring to it as "Obamacare." None of the things the GOP is warning of will happen and people will come to rely on these reforms in their everyday lives. Imagine if Medicare were most widely known as "LBJcare" and you can see why I say Republicans will stop using "Obamacare." Hell, Democrats should embrace that language and try to keep it going for as long as they can.

History shows that Republicans can say crazy things without consequence. I think we can change that.

-Wisco


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GOP's Alternate Healthcare Reality

The score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on the current healthcare reform bill is in. Or, at least, preliminary numbers. Those numbers look very good. According to Chris Frates with Politico, the bill would reduce the deficit by "$138 billion over the next decade, but cautions that it has not yet analyzed all the provisions. So far, it has analyzed $82 billion worth of savings." In a bill designed to bring down healthcare costs, savings to the government from Medicare, Medicaid, and employee health plans should surprise no one.

The release of the numbers has been a game-changer, with wavering Democrats coming around to support the bill in droves. Which is, of course, bad news for Republicans who are determined to stop this from becoming law at any cost. The CBO numbers just made that a lot more difficult. One observer, Washington Post editorial writer Ruth Marcus, put it this way:

So Democrats will be pointing to this preliminary CBO score as if it is engraved on stone tablets. Republicans will proclaim their respect for the CBO and proceed to argue that its estimates should not be taken too seriously in this instance. This may come as a surprise, but I think the Republican argument is closer to correct. To crow, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that the package is "a triumph for the American people in terms of deficit reduction" is premature at best, delusional at worst.

"Republicans will proclaim their respect for the CBO and proceed to argue that its estimates should not be taken too seriously in this instance?" I'm sorry Ruth, but where have you been for the last ten years at least? They might do that if they had any shame or integrity or respect for truth. But they don't. Republicans lie. If the truth doesn't serve them, then the truth becomes irrelevant. They'll just make crap up.





For example, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. Speaking to CNN's Rick Sanchez, Steele came right out and accused the CBO of lying.

STEELE: Can you just give me an honest number, Rick? How much do you really, legitimately think, adding, using the president’s number, 30 million people to a health care system that you just said doesn’t work is going to cost the American taxpayer? How much you think it’s really gonna? $940 billion dollars over ten years. So, you telling me an additional $940 billion dollars a year is going to make all of our problems go away?

SANCHEZ: According to the calculations that we did and according to the calculations the Democrats are announcing today, it’s going to save in the deficit for the United States citizens $1.2 trillion. Do you believe that’s not true?

STEELE: Ok, can I, I got two words for you — three words, three words.

SANCHEZ: Go, go.

STEELE: That’s a lie.

That's the Republican way. Don't like a fact? Then it's not a fact. Just dismiss it. You don't need to make any argument for your position, you just make the declaration -- it's not a fact -- and it's game over, you win. Republicans like to talk about healthy debate, but they don't debate. A declaration isn't an argument. If one side is determined to deny reality, what's there to debate?

Another GOP mouthpiece who's declared the CBO numbers untrue is Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh has called the numbers "meaningless," "a scam," "a fraud," "phony," And "a sham." His evidence of this? None. He just says it and that means it's true. By the same standard of evidence, I can tell you without any doubt at all that Rush Limbaugh has a wooden, prosthetic head -- and it's slowly being eaten by termites. How sad for him... a double tragedy, really. Not only is he literally brainless, but what he has instead of a brain is infested with destructive insects. Try to keep your courage up, Rush. We're all pulling for you.

Let's be clear here, the Republicans have no interest in having this debate. If they were to deal with this honestly, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. This isn't about a disagreement over healthcare reform, this is just the GOP being pissy about being in the minority. It's also about the 2010 elections. But what it's not about is your rising healtcare costs and a non-system of healthcare delivery that can't possibly be sustained. There's a healthcare crisis going on in America -- it's happening right now -- and the Republican Party is playing politics with it. It may be an overused cliche, but it applies here; the GOP is fiddling while Rome burns.

If the Republicans want to have a debate on healthcare reform, then the time has come and gone. They had their chance to have that debate -- and they refused. Instead, they threw a tantrum and made up an alternate reality in which everything they wanted to be true was true and everything they didn't was a lie. Delusion is not debate.

-Wisco


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Undecided Voters and Pro-Life Democrats are Equally Dumb

There's a truism in American politics that the remaining undecided voters get dumber the closer you get to election day. This is especially true lately, since the differences between candidates is likely to be stark. If it's late October 2008 and you're still torn between Barack Obama and John McCain, it's pretty clear that you have no idea what you want in a candidate. Like all generalizations, it's not universally true that the late undecided voter isn't very smart, but it's true enough. Some of these voters realize the importance of their decision and agonize over it, some don't like either candidate and are trying to determine who sucks less, but most are just slow. By the time you reach the finish line, the differences between the candidates should be pretty obvious.

Don't ask me why, but this truism popped into my head when I read this post from Greg Sargent:

Late last week, a source says, President Obama summoned a key undecided House Democrat, New York Rep Scott Murphy, for a one-on-one meeting at the White House — a sign that he’s beginning to lavish direct personal attention on individual members of Congress to persuade them to vote for the Senate bill.

According to a source familiar with the meeting, the President asked Murphy what he needed in the bill in order to support it. Murphy is being closely watched right now because he voted No last time, and flipping him to Yes would be a key get for Dem vote-counters.

“It was, `What are you looking for in the bill?’” the source says, describing the President’s request. “Scott was pressing him on the need for cost control. Medicare fraud came up. Scott said we need to step up — what we did in the House last time was not enough.”

According to Sargent, the White House "is amping up the efforts at persuasion, so expect more one-on-one meetings like this one, with the President making a direct effort to give individual House Dems what they need to climb aboard."

Let's look at some dem holdouts and apply the "undecided voters are dumb" cliché, just to see if it fits.

The biggest cadre of holdouts are among Rep. Bart Stupak's abortion funding holdouts. These people are dumb. Federal funding of abortion -- for good or ill -- is already illegal. What Stupak's amendment would do would make it illegal to offer coverage for abortion in private plans in health exchanges. This would be a de facto illegalization of abortion coverage. They say they're concerned about federal money paying for abortion, but the facts say there's no reason for those concerns. So, giving the Stupakian contingent the benefit of the doubt and assuming they're not just lying, we have to assume they're stupid.

Further evidence of pro-life dem stupidity comes in the form of statistics. The United States ranks 30th in the world for infant mortality. This is among the worst in the industrialized world. Even Cuba does better. And Stupak and company stand against expanding coverage for pre- and neonatal care -- under the flag of "saving babies."

Stupid again.

For his part, Bart Stupak is predicting failure for healthcare reform.

The Hill:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday he thinks House Democratic leaders are not close to having the votes to pass health reform.

In an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, the anti-abortion rights lawmaker said, "I'd be surprised if they have 200 votes."

House Democratic leaders need 216 to pass the bill.

At this point, no one really seems to know if the votes will be there, but the consensus is that it'll be close. The only people echoing Stupak's numbers are people named "Bart Stupak." According to The Hill's whip count, it's the anti-reform side that's short of votes, not the reform-minded. There are a lot of undecideds, but including even leaners who could switch, the antis only have 37 votes now -- they need 38. By my count, if you throw out the leaners, they have only about 24 or 25 firm or likely no votes. These may not be undecided voters, but I think we've established that they're dumb nonetheless.

So Barack Obama is back on the campaign trail this week, kissing hands and shaking babies, trying to sway undecided voters in the final minutes of a year-long campaign. If you're hoping to see reform pass this year, remember that he's pretty good at convincing these last-minute dummies.

-Wisco


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Reinventing the Wheel with Healthcare Reform and DADT

Healthcare reform is unpopular. At least, that's what Republicans have been saying. It's the worst thing ever and Americans know it. To listen to the GOP, we're all in agreement here -- everyone hates this thing. But the truth is that Pollster.com's average of polls finds that Americans are split on the issue, 48% anti- to 44% pro-. Not only isn't there a consensus on reform, but there isn't even a majority opinion. Given the Republican campaign of anti-reform propaganda and disinformation, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise -- we have no idea what to think. Further, White House pollster Joel Benenson has pointed out that as much as a third of the antis are supportive of reform, but believe this bill doesn't go far enough. Once the bill is law, he argues, a lot of this contingent will come around to defend it, hoping to use it as a foothold for further reform -- this is a category I already fall into. This shift would likely put the pros in the majority.

No, if you want to find an unpopular program, you'd have to look elsewhere. Like, say, the Republican defended policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Polling shows that 75% of Americans oppose that policy. And why not? It's an absurdity created by compromise. Then-President Bill Clinton wanted to remove the ban on gays and lesbians in the military entirely -- which he could do as Commander and Chief. But the fear was that Congress would legislate the issue and write the ban into law with a veto-proof majority. So a deal was cut, a compromise was made, and a weaker law was passed. DADT was basically something along the lines of "we'll let gays in the military, but we'll pretend they aren't gay. As long as they don't break the illusion, gays are now allowed to serve."

And this Frankenstein monster of a compromise has now brought us this:

Associated Press:

Jene Newsome played by the rules as an Air Force sergeant: She never told anyone in the military she was a lesbian. The 28-year-old's honorable discharge under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy came only after police officers in Rapid City, S.D., saw an Iowa marriage certificate in her home and told the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Newsome and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint against the western South Dakota police department, claiming the officers violated her privacy when they informed the military about her sexual orientation. The case also highlights concerns over the ability of third parties to "out" service members, especially as the Pentagon has started reviewing the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" law.

"I played by 'don't ask, don't tell,'" Newsome told The Associated Press by telephone.

It looks like the police outed her to punish her for not cooperating with an investigation. They found the document while investigating a theft charge against her spouse. Never mind that no one is required to help police with an investigation and, as the suspect's spouse, Newsome can even refuse to testify in court. For their part. Rapid City police say they had to inform the Air Force.

"It’s an emotional issue and it’s unfortunate that Newsome lost her job," said Police Chief Steve Allender, "but I disagree with the notion that our department might be expected to ignore the license, or not document the license, or withhold it from the Air Force once we did know about it. It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information." Legal experts disagree.

"This is not a federal crime," writes Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley. "Since when are officers compelled to report matters of potential internal discipline to an employer? If the officers hoped for greater cooperation from the gay community, this is hardly the way to secure it."

And, in the end, no one asked and Newsome certainly didn't tell, but she's out anyway. Why? Because of a flawed compromise with crazy people, that's why. This is America and we can never just go ahead and do something. Other nations have lifted similar bans without any problem, but the US has to reinvent the wheel every time we want to change something, because some people think this country is a different planet. We can't look at other countries, see what policies or programs work best, and adopt them. No, Americans are entirely different from every other population on Earth. We can't do things the way everyone else does. We have to build everything from the ground up and, as a result, everything's a hodgepodge of good and bad ideas -- with the good ideas compromised into bad ideas.

I always say that a compromise is an arrangement in which all parties agree to be equally unhappy. I also always say that meeting someone crazy halfway is halfway crazy. And DADT backs both arguments up -- almost no one likes it, it's absurd, and it doesn't work. Sergeant Jene Newsome can get married in Iowa, but she can't even exist in the military.

And this is the problem facing healthcare reform as well. It's compromised into a monstrosity. Good ideas are out, bad ideas are in, because the United States can't just look at other countries, see what works, and do that. No, we've got to come up with something totally different from every other country and ignore what's been tested and proven, because that's just what Americans do.

The good news here is that DADT is on its way out and full acceptance -- what we should've done in the first place -- is coming. It's another thing Americans do. We look at the bad compromise, say, "Well, that didn't work either," then go ahead with something saner. Our uniquely American solutions have to fail before we go ahead and do what other nations have done.

That should give that percentage White House pollster Joel Benenson talked about cause for optimism. If this compromise is as bad as they -- and I -- think it is, it won't last. And we won't go back, either. That's another thing we don't do. What we'll do is change it again.

It's a pity that people like Newsome have to get screwed in the meantime.

-Wisco


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The GOP Tantrum Over Being the Minority

"Eleven months ago, I wrote you to share my expectations for the coming health reform debate. At the time, I expressed Democrats’ intention to work in good faith with Republicans, and my desire that – while we would disagree at times – we could engage in an honest discussion grounded in facts rather than fear, and focused on producing results, not playing partisan politics.

"Obviously, the opposite has happened..."

Obviously.

That's Harry Reid, in a letter sent to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell yesterday. In it, Reid lays it all out. Republicans have spent the last year "mischaracterizing the health reform bill and misleading the public." The majority leader writes, "Though we have tried to engage in a serious discussion, our efforts have been met by repeatedly debunked myths and outright lies. At the same time, Republicans have resorted to extraordinary legislative maneuvers in an effort not to improve the bill, but to delay and kill it." As a result, Reid concludes that "these Republican maneuvers are rooted less in substantive policy concerns and more in a partisan desire to discredit Democrats, bolster Republicans, and protect the status quo on behalf of the insurance industry."





In the oh-so genteel chamber that is the United States Senate, this is about as close as you'll ever come to a bitch-slap. And all it is is the truth without sugar-coating. From "death panels" to "government takeover" to "socialist nightmare," Republicans have been remarkably unserious in their approach to healthcare reform. In fact, "childish" is the word that comes to my mind; the teabaggers and town hall mobs aren't about actually policy. If they were, then they'd have some sort of basis in fact -- unless all those people are quadrennial millionaires, no one's raising their taxes. The teabaggers and the town hall mobs and the birthers are about having a national right wing tantrum and holding your breath until you turn blue, because there's a Democrat in the White House. You can't have a fact-free debate. It just can't be done and it's an abuse of language to call the right's reaction to Democratic policies "debate." It's the foot-stomping, fist-waving, shrieking fit of a two-year-old refusing to eat her broccoli. As Reid describes it:

[T]he attacks on the health care bill are part of a broader pattern. As has been well documented, your caucus conspicuously shattered the record for obstruction last Congress by demanding gratuitous procedural votes on even the most non-controversial matters, and by stalling the work of the Senate despite the urgency of the serious problems facing our country. Senate Republicans are on pace to again break their own record this Congress, illustrated by Sen. Bunning’s effort to prevent the Senate from acting to extend families’ unemployment and health benefits even after those benefits had expired.

While Republicans were distorting the facts in the health care debate and inflicting delay after needless delay, millions of Americans have continued to suffer as they struggle to afford to stay healthy, stay out of bankruptcy and stay in their homes. Thousands of Americans lose their health care every day, and tens of thousands of the uninsured have lost their lives since this debate began. Meanwhile, rising health costs have contributed to a rising federal budget deficit.

So, Reid informs McConnell, reconciliation it is. For the GOP, "bipartisan" obviously means "strictly Republican policies that Democrats vote for."

"I know that many Republicans have expressed concerns with our use of the existing Senate rules, but their argument is unjustified," Reid wrote. "There is nothing unusual or extraordinary about the use of reconciliation." It seems that, if you take a gander at the Constitution, you won't find the word "filibuster." What it does say is "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided." If sixty votes are needed to pass anything, why would the VP have to break ties? Despite Republican claims to the contrary, the framers of the Constitution clearly envisioned majority rule in the Senate. To argue anything else is to lie. This isn't some arcane parliamentary trick, some weird loophole that's being exploited, this is democracy. If you find the idea of majority rule disturbing, you might look into finding some other place to live, because this country is just lousy with it.

So take your bawling fit someplace else. In a democracy, there are winners and there are losers. You can't always win. And, when you lose, it isn't some catastrophe -- the nation isn't being destroyed -- it's just voting. If Democrats have the votes to pass this, then they will -- and they'll do it legally, ethically, and in a way that the founders intended.

All the crying and stomping of feet in the world won't change that.

-Wisco


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Science vs. Sorcery

On Friday, I wrote a post about people who believe whatever they want to believe, facts be damned. People doubt evolution because it makes them uncomfortable, they doubt global warming because it's either too frightening or because creationism has taught them to distrust science, and they believe that their taxes are being raised at a time they're actually being cut, because they trust talk radio liars more than reality. Personally, I don't understand any of it. Why would you want to be dumb? What purpose does it serve? I know it's not a rational thing, but what emotion drives people to be willfully and proudly ignorant?

Take healthcare reform; nearly every industrialized nation has some form of universal health coverage, yet people believe it's a recipe for disaster that will literally kill people. If it's so deadly, how can so many people live so well under it? How is it that our life expectancy, under the "finest healthcare in the world," is actually 49th in the world? You'd kind of expect that "the finest" would result in number one; that is, after all, the definition of "finest." But facts are wrong, because they say so. And now we can have a debate based not on the facts, but on whether or not "death panels" will let the boogeyman gitcha.

These phony beliefs come with consequence. This idea that you can believe whatever you want to believe has an effect in the real world. People die. Real people really die, which might be part of the problem. After all, this death happens in reality, which crackpots have already decided to ignore. If you can deny the facts on paper, how difficult would it be to deny the facts right in front of you?

I thought about all this last night, as I read the story of Neil Beagley, a sixteen year-old Oregon kid killed by faith-healing. Neil died of a urinary blockage, something that's easily treated. But his parents denied the effectiveness of science and relied instead on the best medical knowledge of the 12th century. Because you get to believe what you want to believe. Given a choice between 21st century medicine and sorcery, they went with sorcery.

Associated Press:

The judge who sentenced an Oregon couple to prison Monday for the death of their son says members of their church must quit relying on faith healing when their children's lives are at stake.

"The fact is, too many children have died unnecessarily -- a graveyard full," Judge Steven Maurer said. "This has to stop."

Maurer spoke in a quiet, unemotional voice as he led up to his conclusion: Jeffrey and Marci Beagley each should serve 16 months in prison. Members of the Followers of Christ church who packed the courtroom sobbed.

What Judge Maurer was referring to was the fact that the Followers of Christ church have done this before. In fact, it had happened to the Beagleys themselves once before -- they lost their grand-daughter, Ava Worthington, to this faith-healing mumbo jumbo. The Beagleys had all the evidence any rational person would need that faith-healing was the same as doing nothing and they still chose faith-healing, because you get to believe what you want to believe. Choosing to be a freakin' idiot is what religious freedom is all about.

The difference between this and human sacrifice lies in the lack of a ceremonial knife. And that's pretty much it. It's the 21st century and there are people in Oregon who believe that if they wish hard enough, a cosmic being will come down and grant that wish, like a genii.

And this isn't an isolated incident. I can think of two right here in Wisconsin. In 2003, a nine year-old Milwaukee boy died during an exorcism -- which was supposed to drive out the demon causing his autism. More recently, eleven year-old Kara Neuman died from diabetic ketoacidosis -- another easily treated condition -- because her parents believed that she could be cured by the "power of prayer." Her parents were later convicted of second-degree murder.

Did I mention that this is the 21st century?

For their part, the local Oregon paper has a solution; use the power of law to make the Followers of Christ live in the real world.

The Oregonian:

This may seem modest for a criminally negligent homicide, but it is both fair and fairly tough, considering the couple had no criminal record.

The problem is, it's not enough. In and of itself, even the threat of prison is unlikely to persuade the Followers of Christ to take their children to the doctor. This Oregon City congregation has, after all, passively watched children's graves multiply in its cemetery for years; can prison be more of a deterrent?

[...]

[T]he county must also take aggressive steps, and even consider requiring routine medical exams for children in this congregation. And child protective workers should seek out a doctor's opinion when there's any semiquaver of a doubt about a child's prognosis.

If dragging idiots kicking and screaming into reality is what it takes, then let them kick and scream. If it means saving lives, then we should just ignore all the kicking and screaming. After all, they're just ignoring reality.

And turnabout is fair play.

-Wisco


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So It's a Crisis... What's the Big Hurry?

Last week, I posted a link to a Mike Fiore cartoon at my short post blog, Griper News. Fiore depicts two men plummeting through the sky. Both wear parachutes, but they argue about whether to use them. One argues that the parachutes are flawed and what they need to do is start over and design some sort of "hydrogen jetpack." Finally, the debate goes on too long and it's falling guys meet ground.

The moral of this story should be obvious. It isn't some whimsical notion President Obama had to reform what we've been calling our system of healthcare delivery. It's reaction to a real world problem that's happening right now. We have a healthcare crisis, it's happening now, and it's only getting worse. Republicans are fond of pointing out that the healthcare industry represents 1/6 of our economy. If we do nothing, it'll become 1/5. Insurance companies are raising rates at an alarming clip and there seems to be no end in sight. I don't feel I can say often enough that this is happening right now. And the opponents of reform are saying we should start over; in other words, wait. Meanwhile, the ground is getting closer and closer.

This February, insurance company whistleblower Wendell Potter wrote about increases from the industry.

I pointed out on Countdown that WellPoint's planned increase in Maine was so high the state's insurance commissioner cut the planned increase in half, prompting WellPoint to sue the state. That case is still pending. And I noted that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska announced plans last year to increase rates on some of its plans by more than 35 percent. It won't take a lot of investigating for members of Congress to see that these outrageous rate increases are common, and that the WellPoint increase in California is nothing more than business as usual for this industry, which values profits far more than the health and well-being of its customers. If everyone who has received a rate increase notice lets their members of Congress know about it, it just might give lawmakers the motivation they need to get reform passed.

WellPoint had raised premiums by as much as 39%. CIGNA customers reported increases of up to 47%. And what extra value do you get for that increase? You're kidding, right? You get to keep your insurance. Now shut up and eat your status quo.

I think it's important to point out here that insurance companies don't actually do anything other than handle money. They don't provide healthcare. What they do is create a risk pool and pay out from that pool. And what's left over they keep. That, in a nutshell, is how the whole thing works. They are middlemen and they are unnecessary. They create absolutely nothing of value. They just handle money. Their job isn't to provide coverage, their job is to make sure that chunk of leftover money is as big as possible.

And bad press? Who cares? They've got you over a barrel. You can't just go to another insurer and it's not the best idea to be uninsured. If they want to screw you, they can screw you. And there's nothing you can do about it. Sure, some customers will drop because they just plain can't afford it anymore, but the rate increases figure that in.

Watching their competitors get hauled in front of a congressional committee to investigate the rate increases has done nothing. They're getting paid enough to sit through a grilling. What do they care? A few uncomfortable hours and then it's back to a very comfortable life. So other companies do the same thing.

Huffington Post:

The market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized in some areas that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line, a leading insurance broker told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

In a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Steve Lewis, a highly regarded broker at the world's third largest insurance broker, Willis, painted a picture of the health insurance market in which employers seem likely to be priced out of coverage.

Noting that "price competition" between insurers was "down from a year ago," Lewis relayed that "incumbent carriers seem more willing than ever to walk away from existing business."

So the whole thing's getting more expensive and is covering fewer people. "What does it mean when the insurance companies 'walk away?' It means more and more American families forced to choose between the mortgage and health care bills," writes White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. "It means being a hospital visit away from certain bankruptcy. And [for business owners] it means not being able to do the right thing for their employees."

This is all happening now. The ground is zooming up beneath us. And the Republican response to the crisis is "what's the big rush?"

-Wisco


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Hey, GOP Voter, You're a Moron

If you missed the big bipartisan healthcare summit, then you didn't really miss big bipartisan healthcare summit. If there's one word that sums up the seven hour marathon discussion, it's "predictable" -- either that or "dull." Take your pick. For their part, the GOP chose "predictable," with the Republican National Committee sending out the following email the night before the summit:

Dear XXXX,

After pledging to listen to Republican ideas at this Thursday’s photo op- er, “bipartisan health care summit,” President Obama has decided to stick with the Senate Democrats’ health care legislation, a bill that Americans have already rejected as a massive restructuring of our economy that is a short walk down the road to government run health care. He’s rejected alternative methods of tackling our health insurance crisis before hearing them. He’s betrayed the American people’s trust.

President Obama’s liberal allies on Capitol Hill are going to try to jam this unwanted monstrosity of a bill down your throat. But you’re not powerless. You can stop the march of liberalism by signing this petition urging President Obama and his allies to join with Republican leaders to start over on health care reform.

It’s time to do away with bills crafted in the dead of night behind closed doors by a team of statist liberals. Instead, we must develop sensible bipartisan legislation that respects individual rights and the Constitution of the United States. It is more important now than ever to send a clear unambiguous message to Washington. Sign the petition today to make your voice heard!

Sincerely,

The GOP Action Team

If you've ever wondered what the definition of "bad faith" might be, there ya go. Wonder no more.





Among Democrats, the message was simple: you guys actually agree with about three-quarters of what's being proposed. And they do. But Republican opposition to healthcare reform has nothing to do with what is or isn't a good idea, it's about who has those good or bad ideas. Democrats can't pass healthcare reform, because that'd be good for Democrats in the long run. What GOP obstructionism means for you or me or anyone else is irrelevant to them. If you doubt that, consider the message they brought to the forum: "start over."

We know that Americans are facing a healthcare crisis. Every year, 45,000 people die because of a lack of coverage and the leading cause of bankruptcy -- accounting for 60% of them -- is healthcare costs. Americans are drowning and the GOP has signaled that they're willing to throw them a rope... Just not this one. Yeah, it's an emergency, but try to tread water until they can braid a new rope. If you die or go broke in the meantime, thanks for taking one for the team. Meanwhile, why don't you go freak out over terrorism? Sure, the very worst terrorist attack in human history only killed a fraction of the people that our healthcare crisis kills annually, but so what? Being extremely selective about what you crap yourself in fear over is what being a good American is all about. Hang in there, the Republicans will get to it... After they get a Republican in the White House, more than two years from now.

Maybe. We'll see. Probably not.

It's at this point that I'm not sure where to go with this post. Seriously, given what the GOP offers in all this, the only thing that comes to my mind is "screw 'em." Screw 'em hard. At this point, the House and Senate could pass an RNC press release verbatim and the Republican Party would oppose it. It's not about good or bad ideas, it's about winning and losing politics. That you're out there in the real world, losing every day, dying every day, going bankrupt every day is irrelevant. They don't care. They never will care. If you think they care, then I'm sorry. I can't say anything about you other than you're an idiot. You wake up every morning, let the Republican Party punch you in the face, and applaud them for it. I'm way passed giving a crap what you say or think, because you're demonstrably insane. Did I mention that, unless we do something, 45,000 people will die this year... and the next and the next and the next? Yeah, I did. Did I mention that you stand a good chance of going broke over health coverage? Yeah, I did. If you're getting screwed and you don't care, then I don't see any reason why I should give a damn what you think. You're just an idiot. Sorry to break it to you so abruptly, but I can't be the first person who's told you that. You're an idiot, a fool, a moron, and a chump.

Starting to get the idea that your input is worthless to me? Probably not. Because you're an idiot, a fool, a moron, and a chump.

Given what the RNC sent out before the summit, we can safely assume that they have no intention of compromise -- or of even dealing with the problem at all. If this is the horse you're betting on, there probably isn't a word to adequately express just how stupid you are.

I can't think of any way to put it more plainly, so I'll just end it here. You're an idiot.

-Wisco


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Republican Principles are as Solid and Immutable as Jello

Republicans stand by principles. Those principles are strong, those principles are patriotic, those principles are what the American people want, but it's a little hard to pin down what, exactly, those principles are. We can't ever appease terrorists, for example -- that is, until we must appease terrorists. Big government must stay out of our lives, unless big government is wiretapping us without a warrant, forcing women to remain pregnant against their will, or keeping the Homosexual Menace in its place. Government must practice fiscal responsibility, but only after a Republican president spent years pouring money down a rathole in the desert. Underneath all of this flip-flopping and these temporary beliefs is one real and true idea; that Republicans must always be in power. So one principle is a great thing, until it becomes a political liability -- then they've always been against it. Political nihilists to the core, Republicans believe what it's good strategy to believe.

Which goes a long way toward explaining this story:

Talking Points Memo:

After slamming the Obama administration for "secret deliberations" and going back on his campaign promise to televise the health care debate, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) criticized the President yesterday for televising the bipartisan health care summit on Feb. 25, asking "is this a political event or is this going to be a real conversation?"

Boehner had been a rather vocal supporter of C-SPAN's request to televise the earlier negotiations, writing to the network in January that "House Republicans strongly endorse your proposal and stand ready to work with you to make it a reality."

Well now, it seems, the idea of televising the health care summit has Boehner a bit squeamish.

See, transparency was once considered a great idea, because people seeing how the sausage was made seemed like it would be bad for Obama and the Democrats. Turns out that's not true, though. Recent experience showed them that it'd be bad for Republicans.

It goes back to the end of last month, when Republicans made the mistake of inviting the president to answer questions at their House GOP retreat. Obama asked that it be televised and Republicans said, "Sure!" They were going to beat up Obama on national teevee and it was going to be awesome...

"Republicans immediately agreed to the request," Politico reported at the time, "but they may be regretting it now."

President Obama ate their lunch. What Republicans failed to consider was that all their arguments against Obama's ideas were stupid and that the president -- who won the election largely on his debating skills -- could leave all those arguments in a smoking heap without breaking a sweat. So, of course, he did. As a result, Republicans were left looking like idiots armed only with empty-headed talking points.

"It was a mistake that we allowed the cameras to roll like that," one GOPer told MSNBC's Luke Russert. "We should not have done that."

So now they're all gun-shy. They haven't come up with any good arguments in the meantime -- mostly because there aren't any -- and they're heading into a battle of wits completely unarmed. A battle that'll be televised.

Just as they've demanded.

Republicans are so afraid of this event that they initially threatened not to show up for it. But then they realized that empty chairs at a healthcare summit would be worse than empty talking points, so they caved. One way or another, it's going to happen.

So here we are. The GOP has painted themselves in a corner with idiotic talking points and BS arguments.

Maybe it might be a good time to cook up some sort of principles to stand for.

-Wisco


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